North Cook News

Black students, constituting 18.5% or 143 of Haven Middle School's total student population of 775, accounted for 28 out of the 47 total suspensions (59.6%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per five students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Haven Middle School's 423 white students, who make up 54.6% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 141 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 47 total suspensions at Haven Middle School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 26 student suspensions at Haven Middle School were for violence-related offenses and two for those including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 26 cases - 55.3% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Haven Middle School reported 244 students - equivalent to 31.5% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 191 students, or 24.7% 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 61.3% of all students who were chronically truant, and 46% 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	127	12	0.09
Black	143	28	0.2
Multiracial	66	4	0.06
White	423	3	0.01