Jan 9, 2019, Leesburg (VA)) Loudoun Now: School Board Adopts Policy on Seclusion, Restraint of Students https://loudounnow.com/2019/01/09/school-board-adopts-policy-on-seclusion-restraint-of-students/ The new policy comes almost a year after parents raised concerns that discipline of special education students sometimes involved physically restraining them or forcing them to sit alone in a room for hours at a time. In the spring, the board created a 19-member Ad Hoc Committee on Special Education and tasked it with scrutinizing the school system’s special education practices and recommend improvements. …The board voted 8-5, with Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge) absent, to add a paragraph stating that seclusion should rarely be used for students younger than 9 years old, and that seclusion should not exceed 30 minutes. … Chris Croll (Catoctin), who sat on the ad hoc committee prior to being appointed to the School Board, said parents are concerned that seclusion practices will be misused if the policy does not include parameters, such as age and a time limit. “Sitting in a room alone—you can imagine that would be pretty traumatic for a child under 9—for a 9-year-old or 10-year-old as well,” Croll said. “We really need to be cognizant of the damage this practice can have on children.”
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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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