Report reveals Black students face more discipline at Marion High School in 2021-22 school year

Marion High School Principal Nathan Addison (2023) | Marion High School

By Carbondale Reporter

Dec 19, 2023

Black students, constituting 8.9% or 101 of Marion High School's total student population of 1,133, accounted for 133 out of the 497 total suspensions (26.8%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly 1.3 suspensions per student, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Marion High School's 894 white students, who make up 78.9% of the school population, received 276 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per three white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 497 total suspensions at Marion High School in the 2021-22 school year, 315 were in-school suspensions and 182 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 59 student suspensions at Marion High School were for violence-related offenses and seven for those including drugs.

During the 2021-22 school year, Marion High School reported 223 students - equivalent to 19.7% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 406 students, or 35.8% 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 36.6% of all students who were chronically truant, and 56.3% 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.

Marion High School Infractions by Black Students Over 5 Years