Aug 3, 2018, Bucks County Courier Times: Pennsbury reaches new $200,000 agreement with Caron Foundation http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/20180803/pennsbury-reaches-new-200000-agreement-with-caron-foundation The school board approved the deal with the Richard J. Caron Foundation at Thursday night’s meeting. It kicks in Sept. 1 and runs through June 30, 2019, and replaces a $149,000 agreement the district had reached with Caron in September 2017…. The new agreement also increases the number of Caron counselors serving Pennsbury from three to four, Morett added. In addition to counselors at the elementary, middle and high school levels, the new agreement adds a fourth counselor who will rotate among all three levels, she said…. While district officials said they already had such measures in place, they increased after several members of Luke Johnson’s family appeared at a June 2017 school board meeting to plead with administrators and board members to do more to fight drug abuse in the district. Johnson, a 2013 Pennsbury High School graduate, died May 17, 2017 of a heroin overdose at age 22. Family members said his addiction started at Pennsbury early in his high school career. In addition to the Caron agreement and other programs, Pennsbury has a task force comprised of district-level administrators, principals, school counselors, social workers, psychologists and others that meets regularly to map out ways the district can better fight drug and alcohol and other mental health problems.
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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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