Schools in Illinois discipline Black students at much higher rates than white students. A Springfield high school under a consent decree to desegregate hands out more discipline violations per Black student than almost any other school in the state.
Emily Hays reports on part two of a three-part, statewide series on Black student discipline disparities.
SPRINGFIELD — A dozen Lanphier High School students are going head-to-head in Springfield District 186’s Black History Quiz Bowl against teams from two other high schools.
The team is excited to compete, but after an hour, students from one of the other teams notice a middle schooler in the audience who seems to be mouthing the answers to the Lanphier competitors.
The moderator asks the student to move to the back of the room. A principal later comes to get the possible cheater.
And the energy among the other students deflates.
It’s a situation teachers and administrators are facing across the country — students ignoring classroom rules or disrupting the rest of the class.
Nationwide, teachers and administrators disproportionately choose to remove Black students from class more than other students. Data from the Department of Education shows Black boys only made up 9% of the nation’s preschool population but received 30% of the total out-of-school suspensions.
Lanphier High School in Springfield disciplines Black students at a higher rate than any other school in the state, except for Kennedy Middle School in Rockford.
At Lanphier, there were fewer than 500 Black students in the most recent year of data, yet they received almost four times that number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions.
Student notices suspensions for “being late to class”
Rising junior Keyon Horton said he is having a good experience at Lanphier.
“There’s a lot of nice people here, a lot of nice teachers. You can go on in the hallway and hold a nice conversation with anybody,” he said.
Horton thinks in-school suspensions are handed out fairly at Lanphier, since students can still work in the school building. The vast majority of disciplinary incidents in Lanphier’s data are for in-school suspensions.
But as the school year wrapped up, Horton noticed students were getting more suspensions for five to 10 days out of school.
“I feel like those are starting to pop up a little more frequently for smaller consequences like being late to class and cussing,” Horton said. “I would change that.”
The Illinois Report Card data for the 2024-2025 school year at Lanphier lists no incidents of violence with injury and no incidents of alcohol or tobacco. There were 118 incidents of violence without physical injury, 25 drug offenses and 2,280 incidents categorized under “other reason.”
Horton’s grandfather, Marvin E. Miller, has driven buses for the district for eight years. He thinks schools and parents are not punishing students enough for actions like cursing.
He said students came back from the COVID-19 pandemic a little wilder and less willing to listen to authority.
“There’s a lack of discipline, there’s a lack of respect,” Miller said.
“[It’s] a little easier [for them] to throw out cusswords and threaten and bully and just all that stuff. Spit on the floor, throw the trash all over the floors.”
Trash he has to clean up.
Miller said he wants most students to have a good experience and would like to kick out the ones cursing and causing trouble.
Springfield still working to fulfill desegregation consent decree
Advocates in Springfield have worried for decades about how Black students are being treated in the school district.
Springfield was ordered to desegregate in 1976, following a lawsuit.
“It’s been about 50-some years ago that it came about by Reverend Negil McPherson on behalf of his children. His children didn’t have any Black teachers,” said Springfield NAACP First Vice President Candice D. Trees.
Reverend McPherson alleged that the Springfield School District was deliberately maintaining racial segregation. That year, the district agreed to outside oversight to correct the problem.
It’s still under that consent decree, which includes supervision from a judge and check-ins with the NAACP.
“We have a good working relationship with the school district, and we meet with them on a quarterly basis,” Trees said.
She said there has been progress since the consent decree began.
Springfield’s next superintendent will be African American. There have been waves of more Black teachers, but many hired in the past are now retiring, she said.
“I never had a Black teacher growing up, but my children did. Those are victories, but it’s declining and so we want to make sure that all students have the ability to have a Black teacher,” Trees said.
She said that could help with Lanphier High School’s high discipline rates as well, as Black teachers might be more likely to recognize a student sleeping as a call for help instead of a cause for suspension.
What could reduce Lanphier’s discipline rates?
Hiring more Black teachers is one of many ingredients to improve discipline outcomes for Black students, but it’s not a solution by itself, according to Texas A & M education professor John A. Williams III.
Williams researches inequitable discipline outcomes for Black students.
“It’s how we treat the kids, but there’s also what are we feeding them from an educational standpoint? Do they see themselves in the curriculum? Are you affirming their existence or do you have presupposed dispositions towards children?”
Other solutions include having policies that allow for flexibility from teachers, parents and administrators, and school leaders who support growing kids instead of punishing them.
Lanphier High School Principal Alicia Miller says she is that kind of administrator.
“I love all kids and I’m here for everyone. Every single student whether they’ve been suspended or not, they know I love them,” Miller said.
Miller said the school’s discipline rates have been improving this year — and she thinks new training on restorative practices is one reason why.
“You want to get people to reflect on how [their] actions impacted the victim. You focus on the deed, not the doer,” Miller said.
Miller is retiring as principal this summer, but she said the rest of the administration will still have their restorative training.
The school has also worked with the state to improve graduation rates. Lanphier added a new focus on college readiness, which she said has helped students get engaged instead of acting out.
That kind of engagement is one of the goals of the annual Black History Quiz Bowl.
Retired social worker Robert Blackwell was this year’s moderator. He was excited about how many Black students participated.
“When the young folks were introducing themselves, they had so many profound reasons for which this was important to them in their daily lives,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell said he thinks teachers sometimes see lively student behavior as misbehavior — and they should give them the benefit of the doubt when they are not trying to harm anyone.