The school's claims
The heaviest toll lands on special-education staff: injuries during student escalations, restraints, and transfers — back, shoulder, bites, concussions. Around them: playground and hallway supervision falls, cafeteria and stairwell slips, lifting (a kindergarten teacher lifts more than most people's jobs require), parking-lot ice, and the growing category of violence against educators. An injury caused by a student is a work injury, full stop — the student's age or intent doesn't matter to compensability, and reporting it is not "getting the student in trouble"; it's the incident report your claim will stand on.
Assault-leave laws — sometimes better than comp
Several states and many district contracts provide assault leave or line-of-duty injury pay for school employees injured by assault at work: full salary (not comp's two-thirds), often without burning sick days, for a defined period. Ohio districts, New York City's line-of-duty injury provisions, and union contracts across the country carry versions of this. It typically runs alongside the comp claim, not instead of it — the comp claim still protects medical care and permanency rights after the leave ends. The trap is not asking: districts rarely volunteer it. After any assault injury, put three questions in writing to HR and your union rep: does assault leave apply, what does the contract provide, and how does it coordinate with comp?
The 10-month salary trap
Most school employees earn a school-year salary spread over twelve months of paychecks. When an average weekly wage gets computed mechanically from those smoothed paychecks, it can understate what your work weeks actually earn — and states differ on whether the AWW should reflect the contract salary over weeks actually worked or the annualized figure. The difference moves every check. If you're a 10-month employee, ask in writing how your AWW was computed, compare both methods, and raise it before accepting a rate. Summer adds a second wrinkle: benefits for time you wouldn't have been paid anyway get argued about — another reason education claims reward early advice.
Claims against a district are different
Public school districts are usually self-insured or pooled, which changes the texture of the claim: the "adjuster" may be a third-party administrator answering to the district, sovereign-immunity rules can shape any lawsuit angles, and everything is more procedural — which cuts in your favor if you're the one with the paper trail. Report through the district's official channel (not just a text to the principal), keep your union in the loop from day one (reps have seen every version of your situation), and treat the incident-report system as the claim's foundation. Substitutes, aides, coaches, and part-time staff are covered employees too — coverage doesn't require tenure or a full-time contract.