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Special education students received more than twice the number of out-of-school suspensions per student than their general education peers during the 2023-24 school year. A WFYI analysis shows that most public school districts and charter schools disproportionately suspend students with disabilities.
The analysis compared state enrollment data with incident-level student discipline data obtained from the Indiana Department of Education.
Most Indiana districts and charter schools disproportionately suspend students in special education. Only 21 school systems reported general education students received more suspensions per 100 students than their special education peers. Three school systems showed no difference.
These disparities are striking: statewide, students in special education received over 25 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students. By comparison, students in general education received over 10 out-of-school suspensions per 100 students.
The past two school years had the highest disparity for students in special education in the past eight years of incident data. The gap dipped to its lowest in the 2020-2021 school year, when many schools went virtual in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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.
Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org.
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