Mar 15, 2018, NBC8, Tampa Bay: Hundreds of deadly weapons recovered from Tampa Bay schools http://www.wfla.com/8-on-your-side/investigations/hundreds-of-deadly-weapons-recovered-from-tampa-bay-schools/1052887090 There’s been a lot of talk about keeping weapons out of schools since a gunman opened fire at a Parkland school, killing 17 people. Students who staged a walkout and other protests Wednesday tell us fellow students have been bringing guns and knives into their classrooms. State records show they're right in an alarming number of cases. According to the most recent data available from the Florida Department of Education, there were 1786 weapons possession incidents statewide in the 2015-16 school year. 128 of those incidents occurred in Hillsborough County schools—the most in any Bay area county. Hillsborough High School had a total of seven reports involving a loaded semi-automatic handgun, various tactical knives and a set of brass knuckles. In one of those cases, a student with autism stabbed another student in the back with a knife after being taunted. Another student tried to ditch a loaded .25 caliber gun in a trash can when he was removed from a classroom.
top of page
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
bottom of page