Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
During the same period, Harrisburg High School's 468 white students, who make up 83.7% of the school population, received 27 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 17 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.
In contrast, multiracial students, who make up 7.9% of the student body at Harrisburg High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 44 multiracial students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 37 total suspensions at Harrisburg High School in the 2021-22 school year, two were in-school suspensions and 35 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 19 student suspensions at Harrisburg High School were for violence-related offenses and five for those including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 19 cases - 51.4% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Harrisburg High School reported 79 students - equivalent to 14.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 220 students, or 39.3% 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 36.7% of all students who were chronically truant, and 56.7% 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 | 14 | 3 | 0.21 |
| Black | 27 | 6 | 0.22 |
| Multiracial | 44 | 1 | 0.02 |
| White | 468 | 27 | 0.06 |
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