Special education students continued receiving more than twice the number of out-of-school suspensions per student than their general education peers during the 2024-2025 school year. That’s a slight decrease from the previous year.
A WFYI analysis of new public school data shows that despite the decrease, 91.3% of districts and charter schools disproportionately suspend students with disabilities.
Only 34 school systems and charter schools reported general education students received more suspensions per 100 students than their general education peers. Two schools run by Indiana — School for the Deaf and School for the Blind and Visually Impaired — and two cooperatives that provide special education services to multiple districts did not break down the data by student group.
The analysis compared state enrollment data with incident-level student discipline data obtained from the Indiana Department of Education.
Statewide, students in special education received 22 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students. By comparison, students in general education received over 10 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students.
This database contains the most recent school year’s ratios — total incidents of out-of-school suspension per 100 students — for students in special education and for students in general education. WFYI calculated ratios by summing total incidents by school district and dividing them by the relevant population subgroup. The database also contains total enrollment and total incidents by school district for each of the populations.
Search for your district or sort by column to explore the data.
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