Lake County Gazette

Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 reported 2,682 suspensions or expulsions for the 2021-22 school year, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

The district removed one student to alternative settings instead of suspending or expelling them. This equates to less than one percent of the 14,041 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for one incident with violence that caused physical injury, 925 incidents with violence without physical injury, 43 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, 227 incidents with drugs, 15 incidents with a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 579. There were 224 incidents of violence without injury. For 687 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 1,727 suspensions, while 955 girls were suspended.

There were 1,346 elementary or middle school students, and 1,336 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 892. There were 701 incidents of violence without injury. For 766 incidents, students were suspended for one to two 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	1
Violence with injury	0	1
Violence without injury	224	701
Drug offenses	104	123
Firearm	0	0
Other dangerous weapons	2	13
Tobacco	13	28
Other reason	579	892
Total	923	1759

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	156	52
1-2 days	687	766
2-3 days	67	409
3-4 days	6	365
4-10 days	7	167
More than 10 days	0	0