Plainfield School District 202 students suspended or expelled 3,454 times just in 2023-24 school year

Plainfield School District 202 reported 3,444 suspensions and 10 expulsions just during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Illinois Report Card.

In total, there were 3,524 disciplinary actions recorded during the school year, of which 3,454 were suspensions or expulsions, representing a rate of approximately 14.1 incidents per 100 of the district’s enrolled students. There were an additional 70 cases of students being removed to alternative settings rather than being suspended or expelled.

The expulsions were issued for three incidents involving violence that caused physical injury, three incidents involving violence without physical injury, an incident involving drugs, and an incident involving a dangerous weapon other than a firearm.

Among in-school suspensions where a reason was specified, the most common cause was incidents involving violence without physical injury, with 142 recorded cases. There were also 75 incidents involving drugs. Additionally, 2,083 cases were classified under "other reason" or left unspecified.

There were 2,611 disciplinary incidents involving male students. Another 839 incidents involved female students, while the three non-binary students were involved in four incidents.

Of all suspensions issued in the district, 1,804 involved elementary or middle school students, while 1,640 involved high school students.

Out-of-school suspensions most commonly were for incidents involving violence without physical injury, with 168 cases reported. Additionally, 705 cases were classified under the "other reason" category.

In terms of ethnicity, white students, who made up 47.7% of the Plainfield School District 202 student body, were suspended or expelled the most in the district, with 1,089 suspensions and two expulsions reported during the 2023-24 school year. They were followed by Black students, who made up 13.6% of the student body, and received 1,029 suspensions and were expelled seven times.

Illinois allocated $8.6 billion to K-12 education in its 2025 budget—a $350 million increase over FY 2024, meeting the minimum required under the state’s school funding formula.

In 2024, Illinois registered a teacher retention rate of almost 90%. Yet, around 91% of superintendents reported having a 'serious' problem teacher shortage problem. In total, almost 4,100 teaching positions remained vacant by the end of the year.

“They’re putting a substitute in there, that’s somebody with a four-year degree that’s not in teaching. They’re using a retired teacher…or worse than that, they’re canceling the class, putting the kids in other classrooms, putting them in study hall, but those are strategies we have to use if there’s no qualified teacher,” said Beth Crider, regional superintendent of Peoria County Regional Office of Education #48.