WFYI and NPR won a national award for reporting that documented Indiana's soaring suspensions of students with disabilities and how the Trump administration’s cuts to federal civil rights enforcement stalled one family's fight over seclusion and restraint.
The work won the broadcast news category of the 2025 National Awards for Education Reporting, the field's top honors for education journalism. The Education Writers Association announced winners June 3 at its national conference in Baltimore.
The award recognizes two audio features by WFYI’s former investigative reporters Dylan Peers McCoy and Lee V. Gaines, with WFYI editor Eric Weddle, NPR editor Nicole Cohen and producer Lauren Migaki.
A WFYI investigation found children who receive special education services were suspended more than twice as often as their peers last school year — more than 22,000 students in all — while the Indiana Department of Education rarely intervened and kept suspension rates off its school accountability dashboard.
A second story, produced for NPR, followed Amy Cupp, a northern Indiana mother whose daughter was repeatedly secluded and restrained at school. Cupp filed a federal civil rights complaint, but it stalled after the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights lost more than 40% of its staff in the Trump administration's downsizing. She later joined a lawsuit to force the government to act.
The stories built on reporting that began in 2021 about special education issues, when McCoy and Gaines revealed Indiana was violating federal law by allowing untrained educators to teach students with disabilities.
One contest judge praised the team for showing "how federal cuts have impacted the rights of students with disabilities." Another judge described the reporting as "compelling, interesting and thorough."
Listen to and read the winning stories here:
