Report: At Ridgewood Elementary School, Black student rule-breaking rate notably exceeds that of white students

Ridgewood Elementary School Principal Mary Peterson (2023) | Ridgewood Elementary School

By Rock Island Today Reports

Nov 27, 2023

Black students, constituting 21% or 79 of Ridgewood Elementary School's total student population of 377, accounted for 24 out of the 44 total suspensions (54.5%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per three students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Ridgewood Elementary School's 170 white students, who make up 45.1% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 170 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 44 total suspensions at Ridgewood Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 15 were in-school suspensions and 29 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, all student suspensions at Ridgewood Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 44 cases - 100% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Ridgewood Elementary School reported 42 students - equivalent to 11.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 74 students, or 19.5% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

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.

Ridgewood Elementary School Infractions by Black Students Over 5 Years