Carbondale Reporter

Marion Community Unit School District 2 reported 75 suspensions or expulsions for the 2020-2021 school year, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

According to the report, the district expelled or suspended 75 students during the year. This equates to two percent of the 3,706 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for eight incidents with violence without physical injury, 10 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, seven incidents with drugs.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 41. There were six incidents of tobacco. For 33 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 54 suspensions, while 21 girls were suspended.

There were 10 elementary or middle school students, and 65 high school students suspended in 2020-2021 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were nine. There were seven incidents of violence without injury. For 11 incidents, students were suspended for three to four 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	2	2
Violence with injury	0	0
Violence without injury	1	7
Drug offenses	2	5
Firearm	0	0
Other dangerous weapons	0	0
Tobacco	6	0
Other reason	41	9
Total	52	23

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	2	0
1-2 days	33	6
2-3 days	13	4
3-4 days	2	11
4-10 days	2	2
More than 10 days	0	0