Prison for the IPS teacher who filmed a disabled second-grader's beating. DCS and IPS never called police.

Indianapolis Public Schools headquarters. Photo by Bart Everson via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

A mother learned about the video at a parent-teacher conference. The state office that licenses Indiana teachers learned about it from the news. The police, according to WFYI, never heard about it from the two public agencies that knew first: the Indiana Department of Child Services and Indianapolis Public Schools.

On Thursday, the man who held the phone was sent to prison. Marion Superior Court Judge Clark Rogers ordered Julious Johnican, a former first-year teacher at George Washington Carver School 87, to serve two years in the Indiana Department of Correction, WFYI reported. WIBC put the term at 730 days. Johnican had pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent, a Level 6 felony.

He changed his plea in early August hoping the conviction would be entered as a Class A misdemeanor, according to WFYI. Rogers refused and kept the felony.

In the recording at the center of the case, WFYI reported, Johnican can be heard urging one student to keep beating a sobbing second-grader with disabilities. Citing a probable cause affidavit, WISH-TV reported that the fights happened several times in the fall of 2023, that the children involved were 6 and 7 years old, and that in one clip Johnican says, "That's right (student's name), you get him." WISH also reported that he never told the school or parents, that the family found out nearly two months later at a parent-teacher conference, and that he resigned four days after being placed on administrative leave.

"The defendant abused the trust placed in him as an educator and subjected vulnerable children to the unthinkable. Today's sentence holds him accountable for that betrayal of trust and the harm he caused." (Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, statement quoted by WFYI)

DCS confirmed the neglect, then kept it in-house

The criminal case did not start with the child-welfare system doing its job. In a June 2024 investigation, WFYI reported that DCS opened its inquiry in November 2023, wrapped it up in February 2024, and concluded Johnican had neglected the students. A DCS investigator wrote that he "knowingly and willingly engaged in behaviors towards the victims that jeopardized their overall well-being while in his care as a teacher at IPS 87."

Having reached that finding, DCS did not pass it to law enforcement, even though its own policy requires staff to notify police of abuse and neglect reports and to notify prosecutors of substantiated claims, WFYI found. Nor did DCS or IPS tell the Indiana Department of Education. A department spokesperson told the station that officials there first learned of the case from news reports in mid-April 2024. Prosecutors filed the felony charge in late May 2024.

Asked why the finding never reached the education department, DCS spokesperson Jeni O'Malley wrote to WFYI that state law bars the agency from commenting and that DCS "takes immediate corrective action if we learn of any delays in reports being sent to another appropriate entity." An IPS spokesperson said districts are not required to send such findings to the state. Superintendent Aleesia Johnson acknowledged at the time that the district "fell short" in informing parents, WFYI reported.

A written policy is worth exactly as much as the people bound by it choose to make it. Here, a state agency held a signed, substantiated finding against a classroom teacher and its own rulebook told it what to do next. The licensing office found out from the press, and the felony charge landed roughly six weeks after the story went public.

One law passed, one license question left hanging

Lawmakers did respond in part. House Enrolled Act 1412, signed May 1, 2025, as Public Law 168, requires police to look into whether a school or other institution knew about abuse by a staff member and failed to report it, according to the legislature's bill digest. The enrolled text keeps knowingly failing to make a required report a Class B misdemeanor.

Johnican's teaching license is another loose end. In 2024, an education department spokesperson told WFYI that felony neglect is not among the crimes that trigger automatic revocation, and that the department had filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Law Proceedings seeking to revoke it. Thursday's coverage did not say how that proceeding turned out.

The civil case against the district

A federal lawsuit filed in May 2025 names Johnican, the Indianapolis school board and the School 87 principal, among others, and accuses them of gross negligence, failure to report suspected abuse and deliberate indifference to a vulnerable child's safety, The Indiana Lawyer reported. According to the suit, a parent met with Johnican several times about her daughter's injuries, and he suggested the child might be saying things to get attention. Those claims have not been proven, and the case remains pending in the Southern District of Indiana.

Catherine Michael, a lawyer for the families, told WFYI that prosecutions alone are not fixing the system. "We keep seeing the teachers going away if they're successfully prosecuted, but we're not seeing the necessary changes within the school district that will stop this from happening and there certainly are ways to prevent it," she said. "Supervision isn't that costly. Providing more training isn't that costly. We're just choosing not to do it."

IPS did not immediately respond to WFYI's request for comment Thursday, the station reported, and Johnican's lawyers said he had no further comment. The agency and district statements in this story were given to WFYI; the Hoosier Enquirer's reporting relies on that coverage, WISH-TV, WIBC, The Indiana Lawyer and the legislature's public record.

Back in 2024, Kelly Mosesso, whose child attended School 87, told WFYI she feared the case would never have reached police or state regulators without the lawsuit and the press. Nothing in the public record shows either agency ever made that call. The safeguards written into state policy stayed silent. The alarm that finally worked was a parent sitting across a conference table from her child's teacher, watching the video for herself.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.