The Indiana Department of Education is reporting a slight uptick in student enrollment this school year, largely because of an increase of early elementary students.

Indiana schools received nearly $3 billion in pandemic relief. They are required to post plans for how they will use at least some of that money. This database links to those plans.

Indiana schools are getting nearly $3 billion in federal coronavirus relief to help safely operate and make up for the instruction students missed out on. But public information on how local districts are spending it is inconsistent and often hard to find.

Indiana's education officials are seeking public comment on how to best measure the way schools prepare students for life after high school, as part of the State Board of Education's process to develop a new school performance dashboard.

Most Hoosier third graders are on track with their reading skills according to newly released testing data. But results for Indiana's third grade literacy assessment also show some groups of students are still being left behind as the pandemic continues.

Indiana will spend $2 million to help fully license special education teachers by offering scholarships for required training and streamlining required coursework.

As schools scrambled to deliver special education services in an online format during the early months of the pandemic, students with disabilities faced unique challenges. But many special education students lost more than classroom time and educational services; they also lost social opportunities.

Nearly 19 percent of Indiana students were chronically absent last school year, a substantial increase from the years before the pandemic.

The Indiana Department of Education announced Tuesday that Tippecanoe School Corporation's Sharita Ware is the Indiana Teacher of the Year.

Indiana is scrambling to correct a longstanding violation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and it plans to stop issuing emergency permits for special education teachers in less than nine months.