Jan 4, 2019, Chalkbeat: Here’s a look at the first education bills to hit the floor in Colorado https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/01/04/heres-a-look-at-the-first-education-bills-to-hit-the-floor-in-colorado-2019/ The more than 100 bills filed on the first day of Colorado’s 2019 legislative session include proposals to address the teacher shortage, bolster mental health services in schools, reduce regulation on rural schools, and provide bonuses to teachers deemed highly effective. … HB19-1017 Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade Social And Emotional Health Act This bill from state Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat, and state Sen. Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat, would create a pilot program to assign a social worker to every grade in elementary schools in a high-poverty school district. Those social workers would follow their students for five years in the hopes that there would be a long-term payoff in both the well-being of those children and their academic progress…. SB19-010 Professional Behavioral Health Services For Schools This bill takes an existing grant program that provides money for substance abuse treatment in schools and expands it so that it can used for a range of behavioral health care needs, including screenings, counseling, therapy, referrals to community organizations, and training for students and staff. Schools would be prioritized based on a demonstrated need for mental health professionals and the extent to which the school had seen an increase in suicide attempts among students, along with other factors.
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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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