SE Illinois News

Carmi-White County Community Unit School District 5 reported 287 suspensions or expulsions for the 2021-22 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 287 students during the year. This equates to 21 percent of the 1,391 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for 65 incidents with violence without physical injury, 13 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, six incidents with drugs, two incidents with a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 199. There were 33 incidents of violence without injury. For 203 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 180 suspensions, while 107 girls were suspended.

There were 54 elementary or middle school students, and 233 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for violence without injury, of which there were 32. There were five incidents of drug offense. For 15 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	0	0
Violence with injury	0	0
Violence without injury	33	32
Drug offenses	1	5
Firearm	0	0
Other dangerous weapons	1	1
Tobacco	13	0
Other reason	199	2
Total	247	40

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	7	1
1-2 days	203	3
2-3 days	33	13
3-4 days	4	15
4-10 days	0	8
More than 10 days	0	0