Safe Schools

Suspensions and expulsions facts, 2004-05

The Ministry of Education has collected, verified and made public suspension and expulsion data from school boards for the most recently available school year, 2004-05. This is the second year that this data is being posted on the Ministry website. The following is a summary of provincial data:

Suspension Data:

Overall

• 149,167 students were suspended or 7.0 per cent of all students attending Ontario schools
• 216,870 total suspensions were issued, accounting for multiple suspensions for individual students.

Level

• 65,014 or 44% were elementary students (4.6% of all elementary students)
• 84,153 or 56% were secondary students (12% of all secondary students)

Gender

• 35,893 or 24% were female students (3.5% of all female students)
• 113,274 or 76% were male students (10.4% of male students)

Exceptionality*

• 29,130 or 20% of suspended students were students with exceptionalities (9.0% of all students with exceptionalities)

* An exceptional pupil is a pupil whose behavioural, communicational, intellectual, physical or multiple exceptionalities are such that he or she is considered to need placement in a special education program by a committee.

Range

• There was a wide range of suspension rates among boards from 2.1% of students to 35.0% of students (see table 1).

Table 1

Forty school boards had suspension rates between 5.1% and 10%. Fifteen boards had a rate of 10.1% or more, five boards had a rate of over 15.1 per cent and seventeen boards had a rate below 5.0%.

Suspension trends since the introduction of the Safe Schools Act

In 2000-01, the year before the Safe Schools Act was introduced, 109,406* students were suspended. The number of students suspended increased to 149,167 in 2004-05.

Expulsion Data for 2004-05:

Overall

• 1,888 students were expelled or 0.09 per cent of all students.
• Of these, almost 90 percent were for limited expulsions – any where from 20 days to one year. Approximately 10 percent were for full expulsions.

Level

• 240 or 13% were elementary students (0.02% of all elementary students)
• 1,648 or 87% were secondary students (0.2% of all secondary students)

Gender

• 1,613 of expelled students or 85% were boys (0.15% of all male students)
• 275 of expelled students or 15% were girls (0.03% of all female students)

Exceptionality

• 426 or 22.6% of expelled students were students with exceptionalities

Range

• Ten boards did not expel any students in 2004-05. Among the boards that expelled students, there was a very wide range of expulsion rates among boards from 0.007% (2 students) to 0.346% (259 students).

Expulsion trends since the introduction of the Safe Schools Act

In 2000-01, 106* students were reported expelled. The number of reported expelled students increased to 1,888 in 2004-05.

*Figure is updated to reflect most recent information.