Chicago City Wire

Hispanic students, constituting 15.8% or 201 of Robert Healy Elementary School's total student population of 1,270, accounted for six out of the nine total suspensions (66.7%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 34 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Robert Healy Elementary School's 969 Asian students, who make up 76.3% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 969 Asian students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the nine total suspensions at Robert Healy Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, six were in-school suspensions and three out-of-school suspensions.

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

The most common infraction causing suspension, however, was alcohol offenses, tallying four cases - 44.4% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Robert Healy Elementary School reported 75 students - equivalent to 5.9% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 150 students, or 11.8% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Hispanic students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 25.9% of all students who were chronically truant, and 41.6% 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
Hispanic	201	6	0.03
Asian	969	1	0
Multiracial	13	1	0.08
White	62	1	0.02