McLean County Times

Heyworth Community Unit School District 4 reported 74 suspensions or expulsions for the 2021-22 school year, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

According to the report, the district expelled or suspended 74 students during the year. This equates to eight percent of the 883 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for one incident with violence that caused physical injury, five incidents with violence without physical injury, eight incidents with alcohol and tobacco, four incidents with drugs, two incidents witha dangerous weapon firearm,one incident with a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 22. There were two incidents of violence without injury. For 22 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 50 suspensions, while 24 girls were suspended.

There were 44 elementary or middle school students, and 30 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 31. There were four incidents of alcohol. For 21 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Illinois ranks as the 5th state in terms of the overall number of schools and student enrollment among all states.

Illinois lawmakers enacted laws in 2015 to restrict schools from disciplining a disproportionate number of Black and minority students out of school and into the criminal justice system, often for minor misbehavior.

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
Alcohol	0	4
Violence with injury	0	1
Violence without injury	2	3
Drug offenses	0	4
Firearm	0	2
Other dangerous weapons	1	0
Tobacco	2	2
Other reason	22	31
Total	27	47

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	0	2
1-2 days	22	21
2-3 days	5	19
3-4 days	0	5
4-10 days	0	0
More than 10 days	0	0