Sept 4, 2018, Raleigh (NC) News and Observer: Students are back in school, and with an extra $35 million for security and mental health help https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article217785115.html All around North Carolina, public school students are starting this new school year with more school resource officers and mental health counselors on campus to provide help, and potentially stop the next school shooting from happening here. The head of the state’s 115 school districts and various charter schools, State Schools Superintendent Mark Johnson, held a press conference Tuesday at the Wake County Sheriff’s Office with several fellow Republican politicians to remind people that the Republican-led state legislature previously approved $35 million for improved school safety measures this year. … “We know it’s not just going to take law enforcement,” Johnson said. “It’s going to take addressing students’ mental health issues as well. So we also were able to award more grant money out across the state for innovative mental health programs. Programs where we can identify students, identify their needs and get them the health they need.” Johnson also said school officials are working on developing an app for people to anonymously report rumors that concern them or anything they’ve seen regarding school safety. It’s expected to be ready next year….
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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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