South West Illinois News

Waterloo Community Unit School District 5 reported 180 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 180 students during the year. This equates to seven percent of the 2,676 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for 34 incidents with violence without physical injury, three incidents with alcohol and tobacco, 30 incidents with drugs, two incidents witha dangerous weapon firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 91. There were 30 incidents of violence without injury. For 71 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 129 suspensions, while 51 girls were suspended.

There were 47 elementary or middle school students, and 133 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 20. There were eight incidents of drug offense. For 22 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	1	2
Violence with injury	0	0
Violence without injury	30	4
Drug offenses	22	8
Firearm	1	1
Other dangerous weapons	0	0
Tobacco	0	0
Other reason	91	20
Total	145	35

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	0	0
1-2 days	71	6
2-3 days	25	4
3-4 days	48	22
4-10 days	1	3
More than 10 days	0	0