Crews' FOIAs shine some light on discipline and suspensions

I know there are serious discipline problems in our schools, I see them every single day I am in a District 150 school. There is rampant bullying, fighting and disrespect of fellow students and adults - there is no denying it. It won't stop until somebody begins to force the schools to discipline the students who continue to disrupt our schools. If the schools don't do it, the parents of the children who are being bullied and assaulted need to take matters into their own hands and form parent advisory groups on discipline within their schools (as set out by IL law), contact DCFS to make sure the schools are making the required reports and/or press charges - even against the schools, if necessary.

From the comments sections...

..., my FOIA and 20 some pages of data that took me probably 20 plus hours to compile--to learn the following:

From September to March 21, 4,736 District 150 students were suspended and 77 were expelled. Hopefully, many of these were repeat offenders. The suspensions for only the 1,768 suspensions for aggressive behaviors that encompass fighting, threats, bullying, reckless conduct, and battery to school personnel.

About 1400 suspensions were for fighting and/or physical conduct where injury may occur. For these categories there were 39 expulsions. Manual had 276 suspensions in these categories but only 7 expulsions. Peoria High, with the much larger population, had 255 suspensions but 22 expulsions. Richwoods had 95 suspensions and 3 expulsions. Forty-nine students were suspended for physical battery to school personnel and 9 were expelled.

Workman’s Comp payments totaling $27,403 have been paid out for 44 District 150 employees for injuries sustained during these incidents. The constant rumors of fights turned out to be fact. There were only 7 out of 121 days with no suspensions in the district for fighting.

For the following numbers, I am using only the figures in the Physical Activity Fighting category. There were 94 suspensions for fighting at Glen Oak Primary compared to only 81 at Peoria High. Lincoln had 82 suspensions. Both Roosevelt and Trewyn had 67 for the PAF category.

For the other schools, Manual had 110 suspensions, Richwoods 63, Franklin 33, Irving 9, Thomas Jefferson 20, Mark Bills 15, Calvin Coolidge 32, Columbia 22, Lindbergh 16, Rolling Acres 43, Sterling 39, Von Steuben 20, Valeska 1, Day Treatment 9, and 42 at the 3 alternative sites and Adult Ed.

Many suspensions were for 2, 3, or 4 students on a given day. However, there were 13 days when from 5 to 8 students were suspended for fighting at a particular school.

There were two days of these multiple suspensions at Manual, two at Peoria High, two at Glen Oak, and one each at Roosevelt, Trewyn, and Columbia. In addition, there were 515 suspensions for the Physical Activity Aggression category, which involves physical contact where injury may occur—that sounds like fighting to me.