Illinois Valley Times

Putnam County Community Unit School District 535 reported 240 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 240 students during the year. This equates to 31 percent of the 779 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for one incident with violence that caused physical injury, 19 incidents with violence without physical injury, one incident with alcohol and tobacco, one incident with drugs.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 208. There were two incidents of violence without injury. For 212 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 102 suspensions, while 138 girls were suspended.

There were one elementary or middle school student, and 239 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 17. There were 10 incidents of unspecified reasons. For 12 incidents, students were suspended for one to two 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	1	0
Violence without injury	2	17
Drug offenses	1	0
Firearm	0	0
Other dangerous weapons	0	0
Tobacco	1	0
Other reason	208	10
Total	213	27

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	0	1
1-2 days	212	12
2-3 days	1	9
3-4 days	0	5
4-10 days	0	0
More than 10 days	0	0