Catherine Michael, JD - Attorney and Child Advocate

10/01/2026

Indiana is reporting an 11% decrease in bullying incidents in its schools. I hope that means fewer children are being bullied. But there is another question that deserves attention, it’s are we seeing less bullying, or simply less bullying being reported? Those are not the same thing.

Some schools are reporting zero bullying incidents. When you see zeros or numbers that seem unusually low it is fair to ask how those numbers were reached and what accountability exists to make sure incidents are actually being identified, documented, and reported.

We also need to be careful about assuming that fewer reports automatically mean a safer school. A school with more reported incidents could be a school where students feel comfortable speaking up and administrators actually document what is happening. A school reporting zero incidents may be doing exceptionally well or the number may deserve a closer look.

The goal shouldn’t be the lowest bullying statistics. The goal should be accurate reporting and fewer children actually being bullied.

If bullying really is declining in Indiana schools, that is good news. But we should pay just as much attention to the integrity of the reporting process as we do to the percentage at the end of it. Because “no bullying occurred” and “no bullying was reported” are two very different things.

Before we celebrate an 11% decrease, we should make sure we understand which one the data is actually showing us.

Indiana schools reported an 11% decrease in bullying incidents for the 2025-2026 school year, marking the second consecutive year of decline according to a new report.

09/22/2026

Stanford researchers have found something remarkable with real implications for every family, tutor, and educator working with struggling readers.

As children learn to read, the brain develops a small but critical region called the Visual Word Form Area, the part of the brain that recognizes written words. In kids with dyslexia, this region is smaller than average or absent entirely. The smaller this area, the weaker the child's reading ability.

When children with dyslexia went through an intensive, evidence-based reading intervention, that region grew. It became detectable in more children and responded more strongly to written words. Their reading improved meaningfully over the course of the program.

In the words of lead researcher Jason Yeatman: "The intervention is not only improving their reading, it's also building the brain circuit. That's very cool.”

Two things worth noting: the intervention in this study was highly intensive and clinic-based. And even after reading improved, subtle brain differences persisted — a reminder that dyslexia is a lifelong neurological difference, not something that simply disappears with instruction.

What the study gives us is something hopeful: evidence that the brain responds to structured, evidence-based reading intervention and that the right support makes a measurable difference, in reading ability and in the brain itself.

📖 Source: Mitchell & Yeatman et al., Nature Communications, December 2025. Stanford Medicine summary: med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/02/reading-specific-region-differs-in-dyslexic-brain.html

Does this research change how you think about intervention? We'd love to hear your thoughts below. 👇

09/22/2026

The biggest predictor of whether a child receives special education services should not be how effectively their parents can advocate. Yet for many families, that’s exactly how the system works https://bit.ly/4ApX9Gc

08/20/2026

08/20/2026

The school to prison pipeline is not a myth.
“Children who are starting from behind need to be taught ‘explicitly up front’.
Without extra help to build up things like vocabulary, grammar and comprehension, these children risk falling further behind and some will end up in the so-called ‘school-to-prison pipeline’.”
- Professor Pamela Snow
You can read more about the links between literacy and incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline here:
👉 https://governorsfoundation.org/gelf-articles/early-literacy-connection-to-incarceration/
Here: 👉 https://journal.imse.com/your-students-key-to-success-literacy/
Here:👉 http://pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2019/01/twenty-years-of-working-both-ends-off.html
And this La Trobe University article here:👉 https://www.latrobe.edu.au/nest/poor-reading-writing-feeds-school-prison-pipeline/

The quote in the image comes from the amazing Kareem J Weaver taken from Left Behind Documentary
schooltoprisonpipeline untileveryonecanread

08/19/2026

Grateful to assist this family.

A Hamilton County family alleges that a local Catholic grade school...

07/28/2026

07/28/2026

A trio of lawyers representing Doe expressed outrage toward the organization for what allegedly transpired.

07/13/2026

For more than 25 years, I have had the privilege, and the responsibility, of standing beside survivors of child s*xual abuse from schools, daycare centers, and institutions that their families had trusted. During that time, I have handled hundreds of abuse cases, and I am currently representing many more individuals and families who are seeking justice after institutions failed to protect the children entrusted to their care. I am licensed to practice law in four states and before the United States Supreme Court. Those credentials have allowed me to represent clients across multiple jurisdictions, but what matters most to me has never been where I practice, it is how I serve the people who place their trust in me.

I am so grateful to see that at long last the U.S. Department of Education's has finally adopted a new national initiative to address s*xual predators in our K-12 schools. The Department has made it clear that schools receiving federal funding cannot ignore allegations of abuse, cannot conduct superficial investigations, and cannot continue the deeply troubling practice known as "passing the trash" allowing employees accused of s*xually abusing children to quietly move to another school or district without meaningful accountability. This is happening my friends, in schools throughout Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Texas and many other states.

This new federal initiative is an important step forward, but laws and policies are only meaningful when they are enforced. Schools and instititions must put children's safety ahead of institutional self-protection. Administrators must act when allegations arise. And communities must refuse to accept silence as an acceptable response.

For more about our firm visit www.connellmichaellaw.com or message us on facebook. Connell Michael, LLP

For more about this initiative visit the link below:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today launched a national K-12 initiative to crack down on s*xual predators in schools.