North Cook News

White students, constituting 9.8% or 39 of Walt Whitman Elementary School's total student population of 396, accounted for four out of the 23 total suspensions (17.4%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 10 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Walt Whitman Elementary School's 326 Hispanic students, who make up 82.3% of the school population, received 19 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 17 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of white students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 23 total suspensions at Walt Whitman Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 20 were in-school suspensions and three out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, four student suspensions at Walt Whitman Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension, however, was tobacco offenses, tallying 13 cases - 56.5% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Walt Whitman Elementary School reported 23 students - equivalent to 5.7% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 114 students, or 28.9% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

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	326	19	0.06
White	39	4	0.1