West Cook News

J. Sterling Morton High School District 201 reported 7,467 suspensions and 52 expulsions just during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Illinois Report Card.

In total, there were 7,519 disciplinary actions recorded during the school year, representing a rate of approximately 95.5 incidents per 100 of the district’s enrolled students.

The expulsions were issued for 25 incidents involving violence that caused physical injury, two incidents involving violence without physical injury, nine incidents involving drugs, and eight incidents involving a dangerous weapon other than a firearm.

Among in-school suspensions where a reason was specified, the most common cause was incidents involving drugs, with 48 recorded cases. There were also 38 incidents involving violence that caused physical injury. Additionally, 5,368 cases were classified under "other reason" or left unspecified.

There were 4,891 disciplinary incidents involving male students. Another 2,628 incidents involved female students.

All 7,467 suspensions issued in the district involved high school students.

Out-of-school suspensions most commonly were for incidents involving drugs, with 518 cases reported. Additionally, 1,046 cases were classified under the "other reason" category.

In terms of ethnicity, Hispanic students, who made up 91.3% of the J. Sterling Morton High School District 201 student body, were suspended or expelled the most in the district, with 6,464 suspensions and 43 expulsions reported during the 2023-24 school year. They were followed by Black students, who made up 3.6% of the student body, and received 628 suspensions and were expelled nine times.

Illinois has approved a 2025 budget that allocates $8.6 billion to K-12 education, a $350 million increase from the previous fiscal year—the minimum required under the state funding formula.

In 2024, Illinois registered a teacher retention rate of almost 90%. Yet, around 91% of superintendents reported having a 'serious' problem teacher shortage problem. In total, almost 4,100 teaching positions remained vacant by the end of the year.

“They’re putting a substitute in there, that’s somebody with a four-year degree that’s not in teaching. They’re using a retired teacher…or worse than that, they’re canceling the class, putting the kids in other classrooms, putting them in study hall, but those are strategies we have to use if there’s no qualified teacher,” said Beth Crider, regional superintendent of Peoria County Regional Office of Education #48.

Type of Incident	In-School Suspension	Out-of-School Suspension	Expelled
Alcohol	-	6	-
Violence with injury	38	312	25
Violence without injury	29	42	2
Drug offenses	48	518	9
Firearm	-	-	-
Other dangerous weapons	-	26	8
Tobacco	7	27	-
Other reason	5,368	1,046	8
Total	5,490	1,977	52

Duration	In-School Suspension	Out-of-School Suspension
One day or less	9	-
1-2 days	5,422	553
2-3 days	48	511
3-4 days	8	402
4-10 days	3	378
More than 10 days	-	133