Kane County Reporter

Black students, constituting 8.3% or 31 of Sleepy Hollow Elementary School's total student population of 373, accounted for 17 out of the 51 total suspensions (33.3%) 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, Sleepy Hollow Elementary School's 196 white students, who make up 52.5% of the school population, received 10 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 20 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 51 total suspensions at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 41 were in-school suspensions and 10 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, one student suspension at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School was for a violence-related offense.

During the 2021-22 school year, Sleepy Hollow Elementary School reported 56 students - equivalent to 15.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 81 students, or 21.7% 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 40% of all students who were chronically truant, and 56% 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	111	14	0.13
Black	31	17	0.55
Asian	20	7	0.35
Multiracial	13	3	0.23
White	196	10	0.05