Indiana education department reports students assaulted school staff over 3,000 times

Student violence has become all too common in Indiana’s public schools, with some districts reporting attacks almost daily.

The Indiana Department of Education released a new report detailing how many public-school employees were attacked by students during the 2023-24 school year.

The report lists three types of incidents:

• Those in which a physical injury caused by a student is reported to the school  

• Those in which the injury is reported to the school’s insurance or compensation carrier  

• And those in which the injury causes the employee to take time off work  

Overall, 3,032 incidents were reported, even though some school districts had yet to provide their data.

Many incidents (1,945) required the school to notify their insurance agency and nearly 500 resulted in the school employee missing work to recover.

While some districts reported very low rates of student violence, others had well over 100 attacks, meaning members of staff were assaulted on an almost daily basis.

One such incident was the vicious beating of 74-year-old substitute teacher Robert Gooding.

“This man child was 6-feet-2, 280 pounds,” Gooding recalled. “He hovered over me and with his left hand whammed me.”

The student knocked Gooding down and punched him repeatedly, leaving him with a gruesome black eye and other head injuries.

Gooding later told the school resource officer he wanted to press criminal charges, but school administration wouldn’t allow it.

Sadly, it isn’t only Indiana teachers who suffer these attacks.

Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, also reported daily attacks that left them in fear of disciplining their students at all.

Other educators in Springfield, Illinois expressed similar sentiments.

“I am positive that I speak for all teachers in the district when I say I have never taken an oath to work with all children no matter what,” high school teacher Kristen Jurgens told her school board in May.

“I did not sign up to teach children who threaten us with guns; I did not sign up to teach children who steal our cars; I did not sign up to teach children who post disturbing, violent threats on social media.”