July 21, 2018, New London (CT) Day: Norwich police made frequent trips to city schools https://www.theday.com/article/20180721/NWS01/180729892 Norwich — Police Chief Patrick Daley said the disrespectfulness is not only at schools. He said officers in the past year have had more "negative interactions" with youths of middle school age on city streets and in parks. "The culture that we live in now," Dolliver said, "there's a lack of respect….” The Day requested police dispatch logs for all calls to Kelly Middle School and Norwich Free Academy for the 2017-18 school year. … In the 64 trips to Kelly, police arrested students 15 times, involving 18 students. Three students were charged with third-degree assault, 13 with breach of peace, two with carrying a dangerous weapon, including one charged with “carrying and sale of dangerous weapons,” three with threatening and two with marijuana possession…. On May 31, a 14-year-old girl was charged with third-degree assault and breach of peace after allegedly jumping a boy and knocking him to the floor twice. The boy's father, Timothy Wilcox, filed a federal discrimination complaint against Norwich Public Schools for failing to protect his son, a special needs student, after the family made more than 30 complaints about bullying against the boy…. Kelly dropped its school resource police officer in budget cuts two years ago but hired two "school safety officers." They patrol the hallways and try to direct students to class. Behavioral interventionists counsel disturbed students. "Sometimes they were full in there," Dolliver said. … NFA expelled 24 students, gave 176 out-of-school suspensions and 220 in-school suspensions, totals school officials said were “consistent” with recent years….
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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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