Mar 21, 2019, Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal: Preliminary Auburn school budget up $2 million over last year https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/03/21/preliminary-auburn-school-budget-up-2-million-over-last-year/ AUBURN — The School Department budget for 2019-20 is $2 million higher than this year’s, as proposed by Superintendent Katy Grondin. The proposed budget is $45.69 million, up from $43.69 million. If passed as proposed, the impact on property taxes would be a 2.69 percent increase. For a property valued at $150,000, the annual tax hike would be $36.96, according to Business Manager Adam Hanson. … The number of young students with autism is rising. Last year Auburn had to place eight incoming kindergarten students out of district at a cost of $298,383. Of the eight, seven had autism. In the fall of 2018, Auburn placed four incoming kindergarten students with autism at an estimated cost of $260,763. In both years those costs were unanticipated, Grondin said. The School Committee has asked for a way to reduce the number of Auburn students sent out of district. “This is our proposal,” Grondin said.
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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