July 5, 2018, Willingboro, NJ, Burlington Cty Times: Bordentown Regional moves ahead with reconfiguration http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/news/20180705/bordentown-regional-moves-ahead-with-reconfiguration BORDENTOWN — As promised following a December vote by the Bordentown Regional School District’s Board of Education, some students will attend a new school next year as the district’s kindergarten through fifth-grade classes are reconfigured…. A potential reconfiguring of the district was initially proposed for fiscal reasons, as the boundaries determining who attends which school had not been redrawn since at least the 1980s. Forsthoffer said that it was during that process that the district realized how unevenly represented the special education population was across district schools. In the 2017-18 and previous school years, students who had individualized education plans, or IEPs — which entitle students to special education services if they need them — were a larger part of the school population in some district schools than in others. “Historically, it probably started a decade or two ago,” Forsthoffer said of the trend. In recent years, Barton was a kindergarten to third-grade school at which one in three students had an IEP, while just one in 16 students at kindergarten to third-grade Muschal had an IEP. …
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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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