Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
During the same period, Waterloo High School's 788 white students, who make up 93.5% of the school population, received 123 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per six white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students.
In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 2.6% of the student body at Waterloo High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 22 Hispanic students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 133 total suspensions at Waterloo High School in the 2021-22 school year, 104 were in-school suspensions and 29 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, nine student suspensions at Waterloo High School were for violence-related offenses and 28 for those including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was drug offenses offenses, tallying 28 cases - 21.1% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Waterloo High School reported 36 students - equivalent to 4.3% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 180 students, or 21.4% 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 | 22 | 1 | 0.05 |
| Multiracial | 23 | 8 | 0.35 |
| White | 788 | 123 | 0.16 |
Alerts Sign-up