Aug 20, 2018, Michigan Live: (Kalamazoo News) Active shooter training part of back-to-school prep for teachers https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2018/08/kalamazoo_teachers_given_train.html Part of the back-to-school preparation for Kalamazoo teachers includes training on how to survive an active shooter situation. … In previous years, teachers and staff were taught to immediately go into a lock down, shutting off the lights and hiding. This year's training is more of an "enhanced lock down," Bergan said. "It allows us not to be just a victim," she said. "It's making sure kids and teachers know how to keep themselves and others safe." … The plan is for between 80 and 90 percent of all district staff to go through the video training before the start of school, Sept. 4. Throughout the school year, teachers will spend portions of their professional development days going through active shooter drills, Webster said. … "We are talking about it a lot more," she said. "Parents are concerned. Staff are more concerned."… Solving the issue of school shootings must go beyond increasing mental health resources, Rice said. … The district recently voted to add nine more staff members to help students with mental health issues and social skills. When the budget was passed by the board June 28, three additional social workers and six new mental health therapists were added to the school district. …
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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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