Galesburg Reporter

Black students, constituting 26.2% or 119 of Steele School's total student population of 454, accounted for three out of the eight total suspensions (37.5%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 40 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Steele School's 236 white students, who make up 52% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 79 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the eight total suspensions at Steele School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, five student suspensions at Steele School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying five cases - 62.5% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Steele School reported 64 students - equivalent to 14.2% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 133 students, or 29.3% 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 33.3% of all students who were chronically truant, and 40.6% of the 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
Black	119	3	0.03
Multiracial	63	2	0.03
White	236	3	0.01