Oct 5, 2018, Plymouth, MA Wicked Local Kingston: Kingston’s fiscal 2020 budget presenting headaches http://kingston.wickedlocal.com/news/20181004/kingstons-fiscal-2020-budget-presenting-headaches Major changes may be in store for Kingston’s town government in fiscal 2020 with a potential new flow of revenue into town at least a few years away. KINGSTON – …Tuesday night Town Administrator Tom Calter said cost reductions, reorganization and consolidation that would create dramatic change and may affect services are going to be included in a comprehensive plan for Kingston…. Superintendent of Schools Joy Blackwood plans to apply this winter for a Massachusetts School Building Assistance grant for a new Kingston Elementary School roof, and maybe doors and windows. While the town would contribute under $2 million toward the $3 million estimated cost of a roof with grant approval, Fiore said the town needs to have $200,000 in free cash available in July to start the process…. Pike said finalizing a budget will be a balancing act, especially with special education costs continuing to be the elephant in the room. School budgets won’t be ready as early as the town budgets. Blackwood suggested a change in how the Kingston and Silver Lake budgets are presented at Town Meeting. It’s a change she recommends based on the discussion at the last Kingston Town Meeting about special education costs. Rather than presenting a regular day budget and a special education budget, she said she is proposing that there also be a separate budget for out-of-district students and out-of-district transportation, as they have in the town of Halifax. She said she hopes the change will make it clearer to Town Meeting voters what the special education costs are and avoid an “us versus them” response. She said some positions that are budgeted serve both regular day and special education students.
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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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