Indiana schools suspended more students in the years after the pandemic than at any point in the prior decade, but state leaders have not prioritized the spike in exclusionary disciplineleaving thousands of children missing out on class with little oversight of how discipline is applied.
Last school year, about 72,700 public school studentsor nearly 7% of those enrolled experienced out-of-school suspensions. That was lower than the peak the prior year, but remains higher than before the pandemic. State data obtained by WFYI show that the increase was largely driven by more suspensions for fighting and drug-related offenses.
The data also reveal stark disparities. Black students were suspended more than three times as often as their white peers, while students with disabilities were removed from school more than twice as often as those without.
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