West Cook News

Oak Park and River Forest District 200 reported 346 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 346 students during the year. This equates to 10 percent of the 3,329 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for one incident with violence that caused physical injury, 80 incidents with violence without physical injury, 85 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, 38 incidents with drugs, one incident witha dangerous weapon firearm,seven incidents 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 128. There were 69 incidents of tobacco. For 197 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 242 suspensions, while 104 girls were suspended.

There were 346 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for violence without injury, of which there were 15. There were 10 incidents of drug offense. For 16 incidents, students were suspended for three to four 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	15	0
Violence with injury	0	1
Violence without injury	65	15
Drug offenses	28	10
Firearm	0	1
Other dangerous weapons	4	3
Tobacco	69	1
Other reason	128	6
Total	309	37

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	28	1
1-2 days	197	4
2-3 days	39	6
3-4 days	44	16
4-10 days	1	10
More than 10 days	0	0