Indiana
‘Why am I so bad?’ Indiana schools suspend tens of thousands of students with disabilities
Bella’s school first suspended her in Kindergarten.
Five-year-old Bella had hit a teacher’s aide and ran out of the classroom. A month later, the school suspended her after she tipped over a desk and fled the school. Eight days later, she was suspended again for defiance.
By December of last year, Bella had been suspended at least 15 times.
Bella is an outgoing kid, who loves to cook, talk on the phone with her friends and play soccer. But Kristin said the repeated suspensions affected her daughter’s mental health.
“She started questioning herself, ‘Mom, why am I so bad? Mom, I’m sorry. Why did God make me like this?’” Kristin said.
Bella has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a diagnosis characterized by impulsiveness and difficulty focusing, sitting still and staying organized.
After the pandemic, out-of-school suspensions in Indiana increased to the highest level in a decade. Yet state education officials have not prioritized addressing the statewide increase in suspensions.
A WFYI investigation found that children, like Bella, who receive special education services were suspended more than twice as often from school as compared to their peers during the last academic year.
Federal law requires the state to track discipline disparities for students with disabilities. But the Indiana Department of Education has narrow criteria for identifying schools for review and it hardly ever intervenes.
This story is part of a series investigating school discipline in Indiana. WFYI spoke with more than 50 students, teachers, parents, advocates, attorneys and experts about the rise in out-of-school suspensions since the pandemic. In those interviews, parents of students with disabilities described how schools responded to behavior problems with repeated suspensions that added up to days — or weeks — of missed instruction.
Now in third grade, 9-year-old Bella is one of more than 22,000 thousand Indiana students with disabilities who were suspended last school year.
Kristin said because she has ADHD, Bella sometimes blurts out answers in class. She struggles to regulate her emotions. And when she gets in small conflicts Bella can meltdown.
WFYI is not using Bella and Kristin’s full names due to the sensitive nature of this story.
Behind Bella’s suspensions
Across Indiana, some school districts suspend students with disabilities at rates above the state average.
Bella’s school district in northwest Indiana — School City of Hobart — suspended children and teens with disabilities far more often in the wake of the pandemic. The district suspended special education students at a rate of 41 incidents per 100 students last academic year — far exceeding the state average of 25 per 100 students with disabilities.
Hobart Superintendent Peggy Buffington wrote in an email to WFYI that elementary-aged students are exhibiting more aggressive behavior, including choking their peers and throwing chairs, scissors and other objects.
“We seldom saw students exhibiting such behaviors at elementary ages as we have now experienced since the pandemic,” Buffington wrote. “We often learn these behaviors have been allowed to exist at home without prior interventions.”
But some parents say the problem isn’t just student behavior — it’s how schools respond to it.
Kristin believes her daughter has been suspended so often because some of her general education teachers are not addressing her behavior appropriately. They get into disagreements over minor issues, and those conflicts spiral into explosive confrontations.
Take an incident from last year: Bella refused to sit in an assigned spot during class. Her mother, Kristin, said she wanted to sit by her friends. Bella argued with her teacher and threatened to hurt anyone who took her seat. When she went to wash her hands after snack, she was locked out of her classroom.
Then, Bella melted down. She knocked and yelled through slats on the classroom door. She crawled on the hallway floor. She shouted outside of other classes. She said she wanted to hurt herself.
The school called Kristin to come pick her up. When Bella didn’t immediately calm down, the school nurse called for an ambulance.
Kristin said she’d never seen her daughter so upset. “She just felt like nobody was believing her, nobody would listen to her,” she said.
The school suspended Bella for two days for defiance.
Why students are suspended
Students receiving special education services are often removed from school for behaviors linked to their disabilities — even though federal law is supposed to protect them from being excluded from school for actions related to their disability.
Sarah Hurwitz, a professor of special education at Indiana University, said that one reason why is because some disabilities go hand-in-hand with difficulty regulating behavior — like ADHD.
“They’re doing impulsive things, they’re hyperactive, they can’t focus,” Hurwitz said. “If you understand that, then you can provide those supports, and then don’t be mad at them when they blurt out something in class instead of raising their hand.”
Joe Kwisz, president of the Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education, said there’s been a surge in violent and disruptive behavior among all students — including those with and without disabilities — post-pandemic.
Kwisz said outbursts can disrupt the school day for teachers and other students.
“So, if you clear a classroom of 22 children so one student can work through their episode that they are dealing with, then you’ve got 21 students who aren’t receiving their education,” he said.
Kwisz, the executive director of Old National Trail Special Services, an organization that provides special education to several small districts.
“Do I think suspensions benefit kids? No,” Kwisz said.
But he said schools have to suspend students because they have limited options, especially when student behavior is violent.
“Even in our rural schools, I’ve had multiple staff members sustain serious injuries due to student interactions,” Kwisz said. “We’ve had multiple general education teachers injured. I myself have sustained a concussion.”
Due to concerns about educator injuries, Indiana is now tracking teachers and other school workers hurt by students on the job.
Several educators and experts told WFYI that schools are strained and they struggle to cope with challenging student behavior.
“We don’t have a lot of the training or support I feel that is needed,” said Rebekah Raab, a special education teacher in Whiteland. “We don’t really know what we need quite yet. We definitely are being stretched very thin.”
Raab said most of what she knows about how to manage student behavior she learned from veteran educators and behavior experts on the job.
General education teachers often get even less dedicated training in classroom management and student behavior than special educators.
Schools need to find the root cause of behavior
Indiana does not include suspension rates in its school accountability dashboard, making it difficult for parents and policymakers to evaluate which schools are suspending students with disabilities most often.
Federal and Indiana law offer protections to students with disabilities to ensure they receive a public education. If a school suspends a student for more than 10 days in a single school year, parents and educators must meet to discuss whether the behavior is because of the disability. If it is, the school is supposed to assess the student to find the root cause of the behavior and come up with a plan to address it.
Behavior plans often require educators to change their approach. For example, a teacher might give students choices. Or students might be allowed to take breaks.
Hurwitz, the IU professor, said a small minority of children with extreme behavioral challenges may benefit from a different learning environment outside the general education setting — like a self-contained classroom or a school that serves only students with disabilities.
“But for the vast vast majority of kids, even if they have a meltdown once in a while, there are behavioral reforms to try and keep them in their regular classroom,” Hurwitz said.
Advocates say that the federal protections have flaws. And they highlight one is that a behavior assessment isn’t required until a student is suspended for more than 10 days.
Bella was suspended repeatedly in the fall of 2024 — but she didn’t hit the 10-day threshold. In a report from a special education meeting in November, school staff wrote that Bella’s behavior was concerning, citing aggression and non-compliance. But they wrote that a “functional behavior assessment is not recommended at this time.”
Tom Crishon, chief legal officer at the Arc of Indiana, said if schools conduct more behavior assessments to understand what leads to students’ outbursts — and come up with plans based on those assessments — they’ll suspend fewer students.
“Oftentimes, unfortunately we hear schools not doing those and they’re resorting to out-of-school suspensions,” Crishon said.
Connecting with students
Experts say removing a child from school doesn’t address the cause of their behavior and often makes it worse.
“I don’t think there’s an easy solution,” said Catherine Voulgarides, an assistant professor of special education at Hunter College in New York City. “But I stand very firmly on the fact that decades of research show that out-of-school suspensions are an ineffective mechanism and typically will exacerbate the problems that are already occurring for individual students.”
In addition to training, Voulgarides said teachers and staff need to build relationships with students to understand the root causes of challenging behaviors.
“A key piece in that is time and human connection and sense of belonging between practitioners, families, communities, and students,” Voulgarides said.
That’s been true for Bella. In the first grade, she was suspended only once for behavior on the school bus — not in her classroom, according to school records. Kristin, her mother, said that’s because she had a general education teacher she trusted.
But earlier this school year, Bella was suspended four times. Kristin transferred her to a new school in the same district last October.
Now, Bella says she finally feels heard.
“They have much more help there for me. And when I have a lot of feelings, like they’re there for me,” Bella said. “They don’t just, like, assume that I’m in trouble or something. They actually let me talk.”
Bella hasn’t been suspended since she started at her new school.
Contact WFYI education reporter Dylan Peers McCoy at dmccoy@wfyi.org.
Indiana
Are microschools a solution to falling public school enrollment? One Indiana district thinks so
GREENFIELD, Ind. — Seventh grader Taitym Lynch plans most of her school day herself, mapping out a schedule each morning on her school laptop. She typically starts with math when her brain is sharpest, logging into an online platform her school uses for math lessons. Next she often tackles science with her “class guide,” a teaching assistant who walks her though topics like animal food chains. Lynch chooses to have lunch around noon, and finds time to take breaks in the woods that surround her school, Nature’s Gift.
Lynch, 13, came to Nature’s Gift this fall after years in a traditional public school. She kept trying to adapt, but her anxiety made it difficult. “Honestly, I had problems with school,” Lynch said. “I didn’t feel like going every day.” She also had a brief stint in virtual school.
So far, Lynch is happy at Nature’s Gift. She feels comfortable asking questions of teachers and likes the small size. There are just 64 kids in grades kindergarten through 12th, taught by three licensed teachers and several class guides who provide extra support.
Lynch is the sort of student George Philhower had in mind when he helped start Nature’s Gift — one of a small but growing number of public “microschools” across the country.
Philhower is the superintendent of Eastern Hancock Community Schools, a rural district of 1,200 students about 30 miles east of Indianapolis. He’d worried for years about the district’s financial health as more families whose kids didn’t thrive in public school considered homeschooling.
Around the same time, the concept of microschooling was gaining traction nationally. Microschools offer multiage learning environments that focus on personalized, often less-regulated instruction. Popularity grew during the pandemic when families sought learning alternatives in online, hybrid and pod options; an estimated 750,000 to 2 million students now attend the schools.
The schools are typically privately run, but Philhower saw a role for them in his small district. Last year, he won approval from the state’s charter school board to establish the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, which he says will incubate a network of microschools statewide. They will operate as charter schools, meaning they are public but have more flexibility in terms of curricula and other operations than traditional public schools.
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Nature’s Gift, the first such school, received so many applications for its original 50 spots that it twice added additional seats and still has a waiting list. Philhower hopes that by 2030, the network will add at least 10 more schools and enroll some 6,000 students statewide. Word is spreading: He said he’s received inquiries about the model from school district leaders and education organizations from elsewhere in the state and beyond.
“The interest has been higher than we ever imagined,” Philhower said.
While some government and education leaders praise the public microschool model as an innovative way to allow more personalized approaches to learning, it’s far too soon to know the extent to which they can succeed in effectively educating students or stemming falling enrollment. Some experts also worry that the innovation that has defined microschools may be lost as the model expands.
“American education is populated with fads and failed reforms and that type of thing, things that don’t work out, and it’s hard to start a school and sustain it,” said Christopher Lubienski, director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Still, he said the collaborative model in Indiana could give the schools a strong shot at succeeding.
Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, an industry nonprofit that works to grow the microschool movement, estimates that only about 5 percent of the country’s microschools are public charter schools. But his organization hears from public school superintendents in states with school choice who are curious about the model, he said. “They’re losing some of their best teachers and families to microschools, and they want to get out in front of that.”
According to a 2025 analysis of more than 800 microschools his group conducted, more than 40 percent of students previously attended district-operated schools or were homeschooled before enrolling in a microschool.
Indiana’s public schools, meanwhile, have been losing enrollment since 2008. Just over 1 million students attend them, while about 70,000 students receive school vouchers for private schools through the state’s voucher program, started in 2011. An estimated 8 percent homeschool, above the national average.
Scott Bess, a board member for the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, said he thinks Philhower has found a middle ground for some rural families who chose to homeschool only because they didn’t have other non-public options such as nearby private schools. “It’s going to feel like a small private school, but it’s public,” Bess said.
Philhower said he understands that some people might question why a public school superintendent is embracing and growing charter schools, but that’s what his community asked of him. “School choice isn’t going anywhere, especially in Indiana,” he said.
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Indeed, the state’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, is an advocate of choice and microschools, and promoted them during a July visit to the state from Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Indiana is going to offer microschool options to parents so “they can educate their kids in a way that they think makes sense,” he has said.
At Nature’s Gift — located at a 12-acre youth camp surrounded by woods that includes four barn-red cabins and a main building leased by the school — learning is personalized, with many of the middle and high schoolers managing parts of their daily schedule. Students advance by displaying ability or showing interest in a subject, not by grade level, testing or age alone.
Most students also participate in hybrid learning and are homeschooled half the time.
Erin Wolski, lead educator of Nature’s Gift, helps with classes for elementary through high school students, while running day-to-day operations. At any given time, she might be leading group math work, hopping on a walkie-talkie to answer a teacher’s question or taking kids on a nature hike.
Before joining Nature’s Gift, Wolski spent more than 16 years in traditional public schools, most recently in the Eastern Hancock district, her alma mater. In early 2025, she approached Philhower about wanting a change, and he told her about his plans for Nature’s Gift. Together, they started the school. Most of its budget revenue comes from state per-pupil spending and some state grants, like one for qualifying charter schools that funds up to $1,400 per student.
Another Nature’s Gift teacher, Christina Grandstaff, also taught in traditional public schools for years. She said she prefers how responsive Nature’s Gift can be to individual students’ needs. “We’re still doing all the things that you need to do for public school, but we have the flexibility,” she said. “We’re outside more, or we can learn outside, or we have kids that move from that group up to this level.”
The school has a very different relationship with parents than traditional public schools.
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The Hechinger Report
Danielle Maroska enrolled her daughter, Kinzie, in Nature’s Gift after homeschooling her for years. She initially chose homeschooling in part to accommodate Kinzie’s athletic schedule: The 11-year-old is a gymnast who spends 16 hours a week practicing.
“Covid really opened the doors for homeschooling to be enough,” Maroska said. “Most of her gymnast friends are homeschooled, so we went that route, and we did that for a couple years.”
But Kinzie began to miss having a sense of community. This fall, she began attending Nature’s Gift full days on Mondays and half days the rest of the week. Her mother homeschools her those afternoons when she’s not at the gym. Maroska describes herself as a “co-captain” in her daughter’s education, with Wolski being the captain.
Since attending Nature’s Gift, Maroska said she’s noticed her daughter’s approach to learning change. She used to hate reading, Maroska said, but now she regularly curls up with a book, even ahead of pickup time in early December.
“I feel like this is kind of how college is, in a sense,” Maroska said. “It’s making them take initiative to guide their own learning.”
Still, Maroska said Nature’s Gift isn’t right for all kids. Her two sons, in the second and eighth grades, are thriving at a traditional public school in Eastern Hancock, she said, and she would never pull them from that school unless something changed.
By contrast, mother Jen Shipley said she was initially skeptical of Nature’s Gift, never having seriously considered public education for her homeschooled 9-year-old. But like Maroska, she appreciates the flexibility and close relationships with teachers. Her daughter, Elliana, attends the school roughly three days a week and is homeschooled the other two.
“We feel like partners in her education, versus I’m just handing her over and I just have to deal,” Shipley said.
A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with The Hechinger Report’s free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.
As a public charter school, Nature’s Gift must take state tests, unlike private microschools that do not. So far, the results have been mixed. On state benchmark tests in November, the majority of students, 70 percent, scored below proficient in math while only 10 students, or 30 percent, scored below proficient in English and language arts, according to Wolski.
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She said it’s too soon to use student test scores to evaluate the school since it’s been open less than a year. She noted too that her students were educated in a variety of settings before joining the school.
Only one-third of microschools affiliated with the National Microschooling Center take state tests, according to the Las Vegas-based nonprofit, so data on their performance overall is limited.
Some microschool researchers worry that as public microschools are increasingly evaluated based on state tests, they could become more beholden to that accountability framework and some of what makes them innovative could disappear. “If that high-stakes accountability piece is there, it is inevitable that schools will have to change their operations to lean more towards performing on those metrics,” said Lauren Covelli, an associate policy researcher at Rand, a research organization, who studies microschools.
She added: “With so many school choice options in Indiana, specifically, if families don’t want their child to be taking a standardized test, it’s probably not the choice for them.”
For families and educators who have chosen Nature’s Gift, the future seems encouraging. “This is sustainable, because so many parents are seeking something different,” said Wolski, the teacher and co-founder. “They have more access to things now than they ever did before.”
As 3 p.m. neared on a recent weekday, Grandstaff wrapped up a lesson and sent some students to the main building for pickup, then checked on a student who was studying at his laptop outside in the 20-degree weather. “He prefers it,” the teacher said.
Wolski said she doesn’t want to be part of undoing what’s happening in traditional schools but, rather, building more options into the public school system. “Families want different things,” she said. “Kids want different things.”
Nature’s Gift still has a long way to go, she said, but she is motivated to keep building it.
“Parents are happy. Kids are happy,” Wolski said. “So we’re going to keep going.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.
This story about microschools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Copyright 2026 IPB News
Indiana
Chicago Ridge man accused of stealing vehicles with tow truck, selling them for scrap metal: police
CHICAGO (WLS) — A tow truck driver has been accused of selling vehicles he stole.
Illinois State Police arrested 36-year-old Saeed E. Mustafa of Chicago Ridge on Friday.
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Investigators say he used his tow truck to steal vehicles, before selling them for scrap metal.
One of the thefts took place on Feb. 12 on the Bishop Ford Freeway, Illinois State Police said.
SEE ALSO: 1 in custody after shots fired at 2 CPD squad cars on South Side: Chicago police
Several had been stolen out of Chicago and Indiana, according to police.
Mustafa has been charged with conspiracy to receive/possess/sell a stolen motor vehicle.
He is being held, pending his first court appearance.
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Indiana
Indiana’s Curt Cignetti cashes in on title run with 8-year extension worth $13.2 million per year
Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is cashing in on his first national championship run — even more than initially expected.
Athletic department officials announced Monday that the two-time national coach of the year has signed a memorandum of understanding on an eight-year contract extension, paying him an annual average of $13.2 million — or an increase of about $1.6 million per year from what school officials said Cignetti would earn when he first agreed to the extension in October.
School officials released the document Cignetti signed Feb. 4.
He joins Georgia coach Kirby Smart and LSU coach Lane Kiffin as the only active Football Bowl Subdivision coaches to receive paychecks of $13 million or more. The payouts could be even higher if Cignetti earns bonuses for winning Big Ten or national coach of the year honors in addition to playoff appearances and conference titles. The 64-year-old Cignetti already has said he hopes to retire at Indiana.
The new deal calls for a base salary of $500,000 per year through the 2033 season and a $1 million retention bonus on Nov. 30 of each year, starting this fall. The remaining portion of the $105.6 million will be collected from outside, promotional and marketing income.
Cignetti initially agreed to an eight-year extension worth $92.8 million — an annual average of $11.6 million — but university officials agreed to modify the deal as the Hoosiers remained undefeated and pursued the first football national championship in school history.
It’s the third time Cignetti has received a raise since he took over the losingest program in FBS history in November 2024. All he’s done since arriving is produce the two best seasons in school history while becoming one of college football’s fan favorites for his quick quips and unique facial expressions. Players have embraced him, too, telling many of their favorite Cignetti tales.
Just ask tight end Riley Nowakowski, who recounted his favorite Cignetti story during the recent NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
“I think (Alberto Mendoza) was in the game, and he pulled like four runs in a row,” Nowakowski said, referring to last season’s victory over Illinois. “He kept pulling it, kept pulling it, kept pulling it, and then after the fourth time, it was a terrible read. So in the middle of the game, (Cignetti) tells our coach, ‘Get (Alberto) over here.’ Bert’s like, ‘What, it’s the middle of a game, what are you doing?’ And (Cignetti) goes, ‘We’re not paying you to run the ball, hand the ball off, right? We’re up like 70 points, but he’s pissed off, yelling at Bert, and (Cignetti) just turned back at me and gave me one of his little smiles, and he was just like, ’You like that now?’”
Cignetti wasted no time delivering on his promise to win after leading James Madison to the most successful transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to the FBS.
The son of Hall of Fame coach Frank Cignetti and a former Alabama assistant led Indiana to a school record 11 wins and its first College Football Playoff appearance in his first season with the Hoosiers.
Last season, he outdid that mark by producing the first 16-0 mark in major college football since the 1890s. The Hoosiers also won their first outright Big Ten crown since 1945, beat Miami on its home field to claim the national title and shed the label of having the most all-time losses in FBS history.
Mendoza’s older brother, Fernando, also became the first Indiana player to win the Heisman Trophy and is expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in April’s NFL draft.
The reward: A record nine players, including Mendoza and Nowakowski, attended the recent combine in Indianapolis while Cignetti got another pay raise and school officials continued to invest heavily in keeping the coach’s staff together.
Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines each agreed to three-year contract extensions worth about $3 million per year in December, making them two of the highest-paid assistants in the FBS. Haines won this year’s Broyles Award, which goes to the nation’s top assistant coach.
Indiana will begin next season with the longest winning streak (16) and longest home winning streak (15) in the FBS. Cignetti has never lost a home game with the Hoosiers, who open defense of their league and national titles at home against North Texas on Sept. 5.
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