Mooresville Put James Buchler Back, Then Moved to Fire Him

Mooresville Consolidated School Corporation put art teacher James Buchler back in class for 2025-26 after police and child-services investigators found too little evidence to charge him. Weeks into that school year, the district pulled him again and moved to cancel his contract. Superintendent Jake Allen issued a preliminary determination to end the contract, and Buchler appealed.

The district says that second move is not about the civil abuse claims and does not involve child abuse or neglect. Three families had already filed notices accusing the same district of leaving him in place after complaints and of failing to call police as Indiana law requires.

Mooresville Put Buchler Back in the Art Room

Buchler started at North Madison Elementary School in Camby for the 2024-2025 school year, teaching art. Parents later told Indianapolis firm CohenMalad, LLP that their children were subjected to inappropriate touching and that they had taken those complaints to staff and to school leaders.

The district placed him on paid leave on April 17, 2025. Trained investigators, including police and the Indiana Department of Child Services, then found insufficient evidence against him, the district said. He was allowed to return to the classroom to start the 2025-2026 school year.

Board president Matt Saner told a September 2025 school board meeting that Buchler was on paid leave again and that Allen had issued the contract-cancellation finding. Communications director Susan Haynes, asked whether the new leave grew out of the old claims or out of new ones, answered with a prepared statement. The district would not discuss the live personnel case before the cancellation procedure was finished.

THE TWO LEAVES AT NORTH MADISON

1. April 17, 2025: Is placed on paid leave after parent complaints of inappropriate conduct.
2. May 14, 2025: CohenMalad says it is investigating alleged touching and an alleged failure to call law enforcement.
3. August 20, 2025: Three families’ tort claim notices are filed against the teacher, the elementary school, and the district.
4. Start of 2025-2026: Returns to the art room after investigators find insufficient evidence and prosecutors file no charges.
5. September 2025: Is placed on paid leave a second time; Allen seeks to cancel the contract, and Buchler appeals.

Paid leave is how a district parks a teacher while a contract fight runs. Families who had already watched the spring investigation close without charges then watched the same teacher walk back into an elementary art room, then watched him leave it again on a theory the district would not name.

Three Notices, Two Boys and a Girl

CohenMalad posted three redacted tort claim notices dated Aug. 20, 2025, on behalf of two boys, a girl, and their parents. The filings formally notify North Madison Elementary and Mooresville Consolidated School Corporation of negligence claims tied to alleged sexual misconduct by Buchler. A tort claim notice is the written step Indiana requires before someone can sue a school district. It is not a criminal charge and it is not itself a lawsuit.

The notices accuse Buchler of harassing, inappropriately touching, and intimidating students in April. They also say the school left him in the job after several reports about his behavior. Two of the families had already moved their children to other schools, the notices said. They described depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and trauma, and they asked for the maximum damages state law allows against a government entity.

CohenMalad said it began the investigation months earlier, after parents from the Camby school came to the firm. On May 14, 2025, while the first leave was still fresh, the firm put the core of the parents’ account in writing.

Parents claim multiple children were subjected to inappropriate touching by a teacher, with numerous complaints made to school staff and leadership. Despite these students bravely coming forward, there was reportedly a failure by the school’s administration to protect students from further harm, and to contact law enforcement about these incidents as required by law.

CohenMalad, LLP, May 14, 2025 statement

The firm made the notices public on Sept. 4, 2025, and asked parents of Buchler’s current and former students, including children he taught in northeast Indiana, to come forward. It listed 317-576-2783 for a confidential consultation.

On behalf of our clients and their parents, @CohenMaladLLP has issued tort claim notices against North Madison Elementary and Mooresville Consolidated Schools concerning allegations of sexual misconduct by art teacher James Buchler. https://t.co/eoZMZBvzJc pic.twitter.com/iN1F6lnCxk

— CohenMalad, LLP | Trial Lawyers (@CohenMaladLLP) September 4, 2025

The District Calls the Dismissal Something Else

Mooresville’s September 2025 statement drew a hard line between the civil claims and the live attempt to fire Buchler. It said the April allegations were reported to DCS and the Indiana State Police, that those agencies were notified at once, that State Police investigated, and that the Morgan County Prosecutor’s Office filed no charges on those allegations.

The pending dismissal recommendation is unrelated to the (prior) civil claims. The school corporation can confirm that the pending dismissal matter does not involve allegations of child abuse or child neglect.

Mooresville Consolidated School Corporation, prepared statement, September 2025

That split is the whole public record the district was willing to give. Parents were asked to treat two leaves, in one art room, in one calendar year, as separate events. The notices still describe a school that received complaints and did not pull the teacher or call the police in time. The district still describes a school that called DCS and State Police in April and then, later, tried to end the contract for a different reason it would not disclose.

WHAT THE NOTICES CLAIM AND WHAT THE DISTRICT SAYS

No public charging document has named Buchler in this matter. The civil notices and the contract fight are the two tracks that remain in view, and the district has asked the public to keep them apart.

Nine Years in Allen County Schools

Buchler was licensed as an elementary and intermediate teacher in 2009. CohenMalad said he had lived and taught in northeast Indiana since 2008, then moved to North Madison for 2024-2025. The Fort Wayne-area chapter is the part of the file the Camby notices cannot answer, and it is the part the firm asked old students to fill in.

WHERE BUCHLER TAUGHT BEFORE CAMBY

• License: Elementary and intermediate teacher license issued in 2009.
• East Allen County Schools: Art teacher from 2015 to 2024; the firm lists Heritage Elementary, Leo Elementary, and Woodlan Elementary, while school board documents named Woodlan and Heritage.
• Fort Wayne Community Schools: Public salary records show earlier work there, and the firm said he spent several years in that corporation.
• Exit: Voluntary resignation from East Allen at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, in May 2024.
• Next classroom: North Madison Elementary art teacher, 2024-2025.

An East Allen County Schools spokesperson said the district was unaware of a tort notice against a school district in the Indianapolis area, and unaware of its substance or whether the allegations were valid. The spokesperson said East Allen had had no affiliation with the teacher since the voluntary resignation at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, “roughly a year and a half ago.”

East Allen did not describe any complaint, investigation, or discipline from those nine years. Fort Wayne Community Schools did not put out a matching public statement in that round. The notices on file name Mooresville and North Madison, not the Allen County employers. CohenMalad still asked parents from those earlier classrooms to call if they had related concerns, which is how a civil investigation tries to learn whether a move between districts hid a pattern or simply changed the address on a teaching license.

Anyone With Reason to Believe Must Report

The notices and the May 14 statement both turn on a reporting duty, not only on what a teacher is accused of doing. Indiana does not limit that duty to a short list of professions. State guidance says anyone who has reason to believe a child is a victim of abuse or neglect must make a report, and that a failure to report can be a Class B misdemeanor. Reports can be anonymous. The state’s child abuse hotline is 1-800-800-5556.

That duty sits in Indiana’s duty-to-report statute. School staff who learn of suspected abuse at work are told to report to DCS or to local police themselves, then tell the person in charge that the report was made. Telling a principal is not a substitute for the call to DCS or to law enforcement.

CohenMalad’s theory is that North Madison leaders received complaints and did not make that call in time. Mooresville’s theory is that the April allegations were reported at once, investigated by State Police, and declined by the prosecutor. Both can be true only if the timeline of the first complaints and the first official report is longer than the district has shown. The district has not released that timeline. The firm has not published a dated log of which staff member was told, and when.

A Class B misdemeanor is a separate problem from a civil damages claim and from a contract cancellation. It is also a problem that requires a prosecutor, and Morgan County did not file charges on the April allegations the district says it reported. The civil notices still treat an alleged reporting failure as a basis for money damages against the school corporation. That is the second-order fight the teacher’s own conduct does not settle.

What Happened After the Second Leave?

After the September 2025 board meeting, the public file stops. Allen’s preliminary determination and Buchler’s appeal were pending. The district said it would not release information about the dismissal until the cancellation procedure was finished. It has not posted a later public notice of whether the board voted, whether Buchler resigned, or whether he returned a second time.

CohenMalad’s alert page still presents the Aug. 20, 2025 notices and still invites other families to call. It does not list a later complaint filed in court. A notice can sit for months before a lawsuit, and it can expire without one. Neither result has been announced.

WHAT WE KNOW

• First leave: Buchler was placed on paid leave on April 17, 2025, then allowed to return after investigators found insufficient evidence.
• No charges: The district said Indiana State Police investigated and the Morgan County Prosecutor’s Office filed no charges on those April allegations.
• Civil notices: Three children’s families filed Aug. 20, 2025 notices against Buchler, North Madison, and the district, seeking damages under state limits.
• Second leave: In September 2025 the district placed him on paid leave again and moved to cancel his contract, a move it said was not about child abuse or neglect.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Contract outcome: No later public board action on the appeal has been issued.
• Lawsuit: No public civil complaint beyond the tort notices has been identified.
• Allen County conduct: No public finding has tied the Camby allegations to Heritage, Leo, Woodlan, or Fort Wayne Community Schools.
• The unnamed ground: The district has not said what non-abuse reason supports the dismissal bid.

Silence on a personnel file is normal under Indiana teacher-contract rules. It is also why a second paid leave, with no public charges and no public finding, is the only fact families still have. Parent groups filled that hole by asking whether he remained on the payroll, because paid leave is, by design, still pay.

Classroom Cameras Came Up After the Vote

The September 2025 meeting included a rare public comment on the allegations. Local resident Laura Bell called herself a concerned parent and said she wanted the district to ensure every child is protected. After Saner announced that the district was seeking to terminate Buchler’s contract, Bell stood again and asked for cameras in every classroom, saying the lack of cameras kept parents from finding proof of teacher misconduct.

We can’t get proof if nobody’s looking for it.

Laura Bell, parent, Mooresville school board meeting, September 2025

Cameras would not decide a reporting-duty case, and they would not replace a call to DCS. They were the proof tool a parent could name in a room where the district would not name its own reason for trying to fire the art teacher. The first investigation had already ended with insufficient evidence. The second process was closed to the public on purpose.

Buchler’s license year, his nine years in East Allen, his May 2024 resignation, and his 2024-2025 start in Camby are not in dispute. What remains in dispute is the gap between a spring of complaints, a return to class, and a fall attempt to cancel a contract for something the district says is not the thing the families described. The notices are still the families’ record of that spring. The district’s last word is still that it called the authorities, that prosecutors did not charge, and that it later tried to fire him for another reason it has not put on the public record.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public statements, school-district remarks, and civil tort claim notices. It is informational only and is not a finding that any person committed a crime or that any school employee violated Indiana reporting law. It does not constitute legal advice, and it is not a substitute for advice about a claim, a defense, a teacher contract, or a report of suspected abuse. Readers who believe a child may be in danger should contact the Indiana child abuse hotline or local law enforcement, and anyone considering a legal claim or a personnel defense should consult a licensed Indiana attorney. Names, statuses, and figures here reflect the public sources available through September 2025 and may change if a board votes, a prosecutor files, or a lawsuit is docketed.