Lake County Gazette

Black students, constituting 5.7% or 27 of Gavin Central Elementary School's total student population of 472, accounted for nine out of the 16 total suspensions (56.3%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per three students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Gavin Central Elementary School's 266 white students, who make up 56.4% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 89 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 16 total suspensions at Gavin Central Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Gavin Central Elementary School reported 61 students - equivalent to 13% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 182 students, or 38.6% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Black students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 52.6% of all students who were chronically absent.

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	147	2	0.01
Black	27	9	0.33
Multiracial	25	2	0.08
White	266	3	0.01