Illinois State Board of education | Vice Chair of the Board Dr. Donna S. Leak (2023)
Illinois State Board of education | Vice Chair of the Board Dr. Donna S. Leak (2023)
During the same period, Normal Community West High School's 1,127 white students, who make up 70.9% of the school population, received 313 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per four white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.
Multiracial students at Normal Community West High School behaved worse than whites, but better than Blacks, with 123 suspensions for 102 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of roughly 1.2 suspensions per student.
In contrast, Asian students, who make up 1.9% of the student body at Normal Community West High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per six Asian students, totaling five suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 792 total suspensions at Normal Community West High School in the 2021-22 school year, 598 were in-school suspensions and 194 out-of-school suspensions. In addition to suspensions, one student was expelled from the school. In addition to suspensions, one student was expelled from the school.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, one student suspension at Normal Community West High School was for violence-related offenses and 31 for those including drugs.
During the 2021-22 school year, Normal Community West High School reported 335 students - equivalent to 21.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 537 students, or 33.8% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.
Black students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 43.6% of all students who were chronically truant, and 48.7% of the chronically absent.
In a broader context, data from the ProPublica database indicates that Black students are suspended at a rate 4.6 times higher than white students in Illinois—surpassing the already high national average rate of 3.9 times.
However, districts’ officials deny a direct link between these statistics and race. Lisa Small, the Superintendent of District 211, argues that these numbers oversimplify the situation. “Decisions are highly individualized and based on the specific behavior and are not well-suited to a simple numerical analysis,” she wrote in a statement. “They are not a statistic to us, but a developing young adult.”
Illinois ranks 12th in the nation for the highest rate of suspensions among Black students relative to their white peers.
| Race | Number of Students | Total Infractions | Infractions Per Student |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 129 | 62 | 0.48 |
| Black | 200 | 287 | 1.44 |
| Asian | 30 | 5 | 0.17 |
| Multiracial | 102 | 123 | 1.21 |
| White | 1,127 | 313 | 0.28 |
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