May 23, 2018, KSTP—TV Minneapolis, MN: Former Principal at Harrison Education Center Not Surprised by Assaults http://kstp.com/news/harrison-education-center-former-principal-assaults-not-surprised-/4920336/ Monica Fabre at one time served as the principal at Harrison Education Center in Minneapolis. ... She was hired to supervise the district's only special education level IV school serving high school students. "I needed to address the behaviors of these kids and the climate," she said. "It's like a prison." One of her employees was Mohammed Dukuly. He served as a teaching assistant until he was attacked by a student. Fabre reported the assault to higher-ups and said they did not put any systems in place to address staff safety or assist the children. "If you have people who aren't qualified or training properly, all you have is a body," she said. "So instead of a facility being used to help the most vulnerable, you have a facility housing the most dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt or killed." Fabre eventually was injured on the job. She suffered a concussion after being jumped by a female student. The student was arrested, charged and remains on probation until 2019. "The only shock was the district's unwillingness to change," she said. "MPS gets a lot of money for the children at Harrison and they do not spend the money on services. Our children need wraparound mental health services."... "The assault that I experienced at the hands of a student is a manifestation of MPS' failure to provide adequate support, mandated services, proper procedures, staffing and implementation of many research-based plans that I attempted to implement," she said. "I truly feel what MPS is doing is not only illegal but also abusive towards the students." Harrison Education Center is the district's only special education level IV school serving high school students with extreme emotional and behavioral issues. Fabre said there is more of a focus on "housing" them throughout the day than learning. In recent years, there has been at least five student-on-staff assaults....
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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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