West Cook News

Hispanic students, constituting 23.3% or 162 of Park Junior High School's total student population of 696, accounted for three out of the four total suspensions (75%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per 54 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Park Junior High School's 457 white students, who make up 65.7% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 457 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the four total suspensions at Park Junior High 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, two student suspensions at Park Junior High School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying two cases - 50% of the total infractions.

In addition, 90 students, or 13% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Hispanic students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 18.8% of all students who were 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	162	3	0.02
White	457	1	0