Tom Blessing News Today

The complaint filed Tuesday morning lists multiple instances where students said Burks touched the girls and kissed them in the schools choir room or his office.

Indiana lawmakers approved legislation a decade ago that was intended to regulate and curb the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. But a lack of oversight from the Indiana Department of Education means its unclear whether the law has had its intended effect.

Students across Indiana are secluded and restrained thousands of times each year. But their data about those practices is incomplete and state oversight is lacking.

An 11-year-old boy was isolated inside a room inside his school for roughly 12 hours over the course of two days early last fall. The boy is on the autism spectrum. And it wasn’t the first time he was removed from his class and forced into seclusion.The boy was secluded for roughly 15 hours over the

Switzerland Co. family sues DCS after 5 children die in house fire while in state custody Holly V. Hays, Indianapolis Star How to report child abuse or neglect in Indiana Replay Video UP NEXT Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this article omitted the first name of the familys attorney.  A Switzerland County couple are suing the Indiana Department of Child Services for “reckless, willful and malicious” violation of their rights that preceded the deaths o...

First published Jan. 14 in Chalkbeat Indiana, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for newsletter here. Federal investigators are examining whether Indiana has failed to provide appropriate special education services through remote learning during the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation this week because of multiple complaints filed with the state that schools’ virtual learning plans did not...