Illinois Valley Times

Multiracial students, constituting 5.9% or 48 of Streator Township High School's total student population of 816, accounted for 47 out of the 452 total suspensions (10.4%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per student, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Streator Township High School's 560 white students, who make up 68.6% of the school population, received 268 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per two white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 452 total suspensions at Streator Township High School in the 2021-22 school year, 400 were in-school suspensions and 52 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 21 student suspensions at Streator Township High School were for violence-related offenses and eight for those including drugs.

During the 2021-22 school year, Streator Township High School reported 196 students - equivalent to 24% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 421 students, or 51.6% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Multiracial students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 31.5% of all students who were chronically truant, and 59.3% 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	166	103	0.62
Black	39	34	0.87
Multiracial	48	47	0.98
White	560	268	0.48