July 15, 2018, Lexington (KY) Herald Leader: Fayette schools could raise taxes this week for safety upgrade. What you need to know https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article214820750.html On Wednesday, the Fayette County Public Schools board will vote on Superintendent Manny Caulk’s far-reaching plan to make Lexington schools safer— including everything from more counselors to added metal detectors — paid for with $13.5 million in increased property taxes. Caulk will ask the board to add a 5‐cent property tax for every $100 of property value. Here are some answers to key questions about the proposal: The tax increase will pay for placing law enforcement officers in every school, hiring more mental health professionals, securing exterior school doors, constructing secure vestibules, partnering with University of Kentucky Adolescent Medicine to provide access to comprehensive assessment and health services for students in grades six through 12, expanding emergency planning and safety training, monitoring social media activity, and implementing metal detectors in every middle and high school. Why is it needed? Caulk says he wants children and those who educate them to be safe at school. After each shooting over the past two decades, including a fatal shooting in Marshall County earlier this year, he said educators, students and parents have wondered if it could happen in our community. He said that question was answered Feb. 17 when Lexington Police officers removed an AR‐15 semi‐automatic rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition from the bedroom of a Dunbar student who was later arrested for making threats to shoot up the school. The issue took on added urgency this spring when a Henry Clay student brought a gun to school, and a Douglass student shot himself in the hand during class. What if it doesn’t pass? Caulk said if the measure doesn’t pass, “then our schools will remain as vulnerable tomorrow as they are today.” The proposals in his safety plan would not be implemented….
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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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