Chicago City Wire

Black students, constituting 4.4% or 10 of Evergreen Academy Elementary School's total student population of 228, accounted for one out of the two total suspensions (50%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per 10 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Evergreen Academy Elementary School's 201 Hispanic students, who make up 88.2% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 201 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the two total suspensions at Evergreen Academy Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, one was in-school suspension and one out-of-school suspension.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, one student suspension at Evergreen Academy Elementary School was for a violence-related offense.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying one cases - 50% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Evergreen Academy Elementary School reported 63 students - equivalent to 27.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 62 students, or 27.4% 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	201	1	0
Black	10	1	0.1