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U-46 reports small gains in attendance and fewer suspensions, but board presses on referral bias
Summary
District officials told the board that average attendance rose to 90.4% and chronic absenteeism fell to 25.5% year-over-year; out-of-school suspensions fell by 163 students, while board members pressed for more data on disproportionality and referral bias.
District leaders told the Elgin School District U-46 Board of Education on May 4 that attendance and behavior indicators are moving in the right direction but racial disproportionality in referrals remains a concern.
Mark Cannella, director of culture and climate, described a small but meaningful increase in average attendance from 89.6% to 90.4% and a decline in chronic absenteeism from approximately 28.4% to 25.5%. Cannella said targeted strategies and the Every Minute Matters attendance campaign are contributing to gains, with the biggest improvements occurring in January and February 2026. He also said summer transition programming has strong registration numbers: as of April 27, more than 1,200 incoming sixth- and seventh-graders had signed up for middle-school experiences and nearly 400 incoming ninth-graders had registered for Freshman Connection.
Cannella reported that district behavior referrals decreased 5.6% year over year, and out-of-school suspensions declined from 1,204 students to 1,041 students (a decrease of 163). He said the district is increasing restorative-practices training and using staff road shows and data dashboards to reduce disproportionality.
Board members asked pointed questions about how referrals are written, whether bias affects which incidents become referrals, and where disproportionality is highest by grade band. One board member argued that the issue may not be writing quality alone but whether a referral should have been written at all: "the referral shouldn't have been written in the first place because the adult in question was relying on their implicit bias rather than making an honest assessment of the student's behavior," the board member said. Cannella said staff road shows include bias topics and that additional data and exemplars will be provided in a follow-up memo.
What happens next: staff will provide requested breakdowns by grade band and site and return with additional metrics and a plan for further staff support and parent engagement.
