Indiana law ends public reporting of teacher injuries, sparks safety concerns

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana is getting rid of a law that requires schools to publicly report when a student injures a school employee on the job.

State law requires Indiana schools to track school employee injuries and annually report the data to the Indiana Department of Education. The department compiles the numbers, broken down by school district, into a publicly available report.

Under the law that takes effect July 1, House Enrolled Act 1249, schools will be required to report “workplace battery” reports to the Indiana Department of Labor starting in July 2027.

The new law also does not require the Department of Labor to publicly report school employee injury data.

The change does not sit well with Cathy Wendorff, a former teacher at Decatur Central High School. Wendorff says she was injured by a teenage student during an outburst. “She shoulder-checked me. She purposefully threw her shoulder into my shoulder.”

Wendorff said she needed a sling and physical therapy as a result of the injury.

She resigned from her teaching job in February for safety reasons.

“I do feel it’s an epidemic right now with lots of teachers are getting injured, and it’s not getting reported. That’s why I’m speaking out about this. It wasn’t the students who made me leave, it was the lack of support.”

She’s concerned that the law will hurt teacher safety.

“Parents and the community need to realize teachers should feel valued. We aren’t feeling valued.”

WISH-TV’s sister station WRTV has found all kinds of teacher injuries since 2018: teachers hit, punched, kicked, hair pulled, headbutted and some suffering from concussions.

Indiana law requires public schools and charter schools to report if the injury:

• Is required to be reported to the public school’s worker’s compensation carrier.
• Causes the employee to miss all or part of one or more work days.
• Is required to be reported to the public school pursuant to the public school’s reporting policy.

The last public report from the Indiana Department of Education will be issued in August.

I-Team 8 contacted the lawmaker behind the language repealing the reporting requirements, Rep. Alex Zimmerman, R-North Vernon. Zimmerman said in a statement, “We removed the requirement to report to the Department of Education and realigned those reports to be sent to the Department of Labor, which would be a more robust report on these unfortunate situations. This is simply a measure to avoid duplicative efforts and streamline government where we can while keeping in place important reports to the state regarding workplace violence.”

The Indiana State Teachers Association is opposed to the new law, especially the fact that the Indiana Department of Labor was not required to publicly report school employee injury data online.

Jennifer Smith-Margraf, president at the Indiana State Teachers Association, said, “It feels like whether that’s the intent or not that people don’t really want to have a conversation about what is happening in schools. The idea behind the existing requirement is to make sure that we’re seeing where students are struggling and what they’re struggling with, so that we can make sure that we’re directing funds to help support them.”

The Indiana State Teachers Association believes that under the new law, schools will no longer report a range of incidents. Smith-Margraf said, “Sending it to the Department of Labor means that it has to rise to the level of battery in order to be reported, and most teachers do not want to say that what happened to them on behalf of a student is battery, because then that will also involve the police.”

Smith-Margraf pointed out that individual school districts can adopt more restrictive policies, such as the policy just passed by the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.

In the summer, a WRTV talked with Melissa Streeval, a teacher who resigned from the Columbus-based school district after she says she was hurt on the job by students.

Cathy Wendorff is not sure if she will return to the classroom. “It’s not OK for teachers to not feel respected and not feel supported and work so hard. We give everything.”

I-Team contacted Decatur Township Schools for a response. The superintendent, Scott Collins, said he could not discuss personnel matters but provided a statement about school safety and policies.

“The safety of our students and staff remains our highest priority. Our district has multiple layers of support and accountability in place to maintain a safe learning environment. These include strong administrative oversight, a structured approach to discipline, Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) training, and the presence of our dedicated Decatur Township School Police.

“We also follow clear incident reporting protocols to ensure concerns are documented and addressed promptly, and we have established procedures, including worker’s compensation processes, to support staff when incidents occur. We remain committed to continuously reviewing and strengthening our practices to ensure every student and staff member feels safe, supported, and protected.”

According to the Indiana Department of Labor, the data will be subject to a public records request under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act (ARPA). Kenneth Boucher, deputy commissioner of Labor said in an email, “The act does not contemplate posting the reports online. We may revaluate later based on the number of APRA requests received for the data.”

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