Why do so many black students face expulsion in U-46?

A recent Associated Press report found that the number of black students facing discipline in Illinois public schools has soared in the last decade, only deepening the racial divide.

Expulsion data from Elgin Area School District U-46, the second-largest district next to Chicago Public Schools, both confirms and contradicts the report's findings.

The number of black students at Streamwood, Larkin, Elgin, South Elgin and Bartlett high schools facing expulsion in the academic year's first quarter hasn't grown steadily in recent years, but ebbed and flowed. Expulsions overall are down this year, which district administrators credit to recent crisis training given to administrators, and the recent implementation of a weapons prevention program.

But the percentage of students facing expulsion who are black has been larger in all of the last seven years than the percentage of the high school student population that is black. Black students have consistently made up about 7 percent of the student population, but they've constituted between 12.5 percent and 45 percent of the students facing expulsion.

Temi Latinwo, president of the NAACP's Elgin Chapter, said she's not surprised by either of the findings.

"Considering the African American community (in the Elgin area) is only 7 percent of the population, it's disheartening to hear," she said. "Your aptitude in school reflects throughout your entire life."

Kelvin Lane, the school district's coordinator of student discipline, said the number of students facing expulsion this year may not be completely even across racial and ethnic subgroups.

Of the seven expulsion hearings so far this year, two have been with black students. Three have been given to white students, two to Latino students and one to an Asian student.

"It's not so much even, but I don't see a high majority that are coming across my desk that are black," he said. Of the seven expulsion hearings so far this year, only two students have been expelled from school, Lane said. Both of those students are Hispanic.

"When I look at it as far as race, it's when you look at the issues," Lane said. "There's a lot of stuff that happens in school. When you look at the main things (that warrant expulsion), like gang fights, the people typically involved in gangs are Latinos and blacks. These are situations you can be expelled for."

The school board ultimately votes on whether students are expelled from school or not. Before that vote, Lane also pointed out, the board is given information on the offense that took place in school, but not on the race or gender of the student involved.

Lane, whose background includes work at Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 and Northwest Suburban High School District 214, said "it wasn't like that in other districts when I went in to talk about expulsions."

Lane and District Safety Coordinator John Heiderscheidt recently presented the expulsion data to the U-46 school board for the first time.

Included in the report was the number of first-quarter expulsions and expulsion hearings since 2003. The number of expulsion hearings was broken down by offense, race, ethnicity and sex.

The report did not reveal which subgroups of students committed which offenses.

The Associated Press report, which looked at suspensions and expulsions by race across the state, suggested a number of factors could be at work to cause black students to be expelled more often than their peers, including poverty, academic achievement, even the possibility of racial bias in the way students are treated.

"There's a lot more going on than poverty and the characteristics of kids," said Russell Skiba, an Indiana University researcher who studies school discipline.

Skiba told the AP that a predominantly white teaching corps - 85 percent in Illinois, compared to 9 percent black - may be culturally mismatched with minority students. White teachers without proper training, he said, can misinterpret student actions that aren't meant to be disruptive or threatening.

According to state report cards, in U-46, 83.3 percent of teachers are white, 1.9 percent are black, 14 percent are Hispanic and 0.7 percent are Asian.

U-46 now has 11,569 students attending its five high schools, according to 2009 state report cards. Black students make up only 7.5 percent of the district's high school population. Hispanic students make up 39 percent, white students 43 percent.

"We do have some (minority teachers)," Lane said. "I don't think we have enough. I don't think that contributes to the discipline problems, though."

Lane, who began his tenure in July, has spent recent months reviewing the reasons students are expelled.

This report was the first time expulsion data was ever presented publicly.

Last school year, nearly one-third of students who attended expulsion hearings in the first quarter assaulted staff members, the highest number the district had seen since 2003. Several of those "assaults" occurred, Lane said, from teachers stepping in to break up fights.

"I don't believe we should be expelling students for situations we create," Lane said.

"You can't (always) break up a fight by yourself," he said. "What you need is to wait and get help."

During the first quarter of this year, only one student faced expulsion for assaulting a staff member. That coincides with all school administrators and dean's assistants receiving, for the first time, Crisis Prevention Intervention training before the start of the school year.

The training teaches staff members de-escalation techniques and strategies to keep cool in the midst of breaking up fights. Teachers haven't yet received that training but will have the chance to sign up during a February institute day.

The number of students facing expulsion for having weapons on campus has declined from 16 in the first quarter of 2003 to just four this year.

Heiderscheidt credits this decline with the district's weapons prevention program, rolled out at all five high schools just months after an Elgin High School student stabbed a teacher in January 2008. The number of students attending expulsion hearings for being caught with drugs, fighting, vandalism, arson, sexual offenses and truancy has been steady over the seven-year period, according to the district's report.

"What will be the next step, for U-46, for the entire state?" NAACP's Latinwo asked. "What will we do once we find that this is the case. ..."It doesn't fix or change the situation to put numbers to it."

Moving forward, Heiderscheidt said, U-46 must focus on using the data to learn how to prevent expulsions.

"We need to look at the reasons. Maybe we can do different things. Maybe that racial discussion has merit, maybe it doesn't. But if we don't look at the reasons why, we'll never know."

Black students represent a small portion of Elgin Area School District U-46 high school students, yet every year they represent a significant portion of students attending first-quarter expulsion hearings.

2003WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5540 687 2868 750Expulsion hearings 9 3 12 0% of hearings 37.5% 12.5% 50% 0%% of students 56.3% 7.0% 29.1% 7.6%2004WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5470 693 3082 788Expulsion hearings 3 2 11 0% of hearings 18.8% 12.5% 68.7% 0%% of students 54.7% 6.9% 30.8% 7.9%2005WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5476 819 3270 765Expulsion hearings 1 5 7 0% of hearings 7.7% 38.5% 53.8% 0%% of students 53.0% 7.9% 31.7%7.4%2006WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5500 766 3581 788Expulsion hearings 3 3 11 0% of hearings 17.6% 17.6% 64.7% 0%% of students 51.7% 7.2% 33.7% 7.4%2007WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5549 789 3904 857Expulsion hearings 1 6 10 0% of hearings 5.8% 35% 58.8% 0%% of students 49.9% 7% 35.1% 8%2008WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5501 821 4184 894Expulsion hearings 8 15 10 0% of hearings 24.2% 45% 30.3% 0%% of students 48.2% 7.2% 36.7% 7.8% 2009WhiteBlackHispanicAsianStudents 5317 876 4496 880Expulsion hearings 3 2 2 1% of hearings 42.8% 28.5% 28.5% 14.2%% of students 46% 7.5% 38.8% 7.6%Note: South Elgin High School opened in 2004, but state enrollment data by student subgroup is tracked from only 2006 on, after the school had a class of juniors to take the Prairie State Achievement Exam.Sources: Elgin Area School District U-46 first quarter hearing and expulsion data, Illinois State Board of Education