Carbondale Reporter

Black students, constituting 5.4% or 27 of Herrin Middle School's total student population of 500, accounted for 16 out of the 73 total suspensions (21.9%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per two students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Herrin Middle School's 414 white students, who make up 82.8% of the school population, received 48 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per nine white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 73 total suspensions at Herrin Middle School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate two students to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 33 student suspensions at Herrin Middle School were for violence-related offenses and two for those including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 33 cases - 45.2% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Herrin Middle School reported 78 students - equivalent to 15.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 138 students, or 27.6% 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 30.3% 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	13	2	0.15
Black	27	16	0.59
Multiracial	43	7	0.16
White	414	48	0.12