Rock Island Today

White students, constituting 59.2% or 184 of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School's total student population of 311, accounted for 15 out of the 21 total suspensions (71.4%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 12 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Thomas Jefferson Elementary School's 43 Hispanic students, who make up 13.8% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 43 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of white students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 21 total suspensions at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, nine were in-school suspensions and 12 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 17 student suspensions at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 17 cases - 81% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Thomas Jefferson Elementary School reported 68 students - equivalent to 21.9% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 22 students, or 7% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

White students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 7.8% of all students who were 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	43	1	0.02
Black	43	2	0.05
Multiracial	24	3	0.13
White	184	15	0.08