South West Illinois News

Multiracial students, constituting 3% or 19 of Waterloo Junior High School's total student population of 625, accounted for eight out of the 47 total suspensions (17%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per two students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Waterloo Junior High School's 592 white students, who make up 94.7% of the school population, received 38 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 16 white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 47 total suspensions at Waterloo Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, 41 were in-school suspensions and six out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 25 student suspensions at Waterloo Junior High School were for violence-related offenses and two for those including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 25 cases - 53.2% of the total infractions.

In addition, 73 students, or 11.6% 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	11	1	0.09
Multiracial	19	8	0.42
White	592	38	0.06