Sept 27, 2018, Woodward (OK) News: School violence study: Schools need more counselors, tip lines http://www.woodwardnews.net/news/school-violence-study-schools-need-more-counselors-tip-lines/article_6bb7620a-f8b7-571b-bd6d-65e2c41034d1.html Schools statewide need more mental health counselors and officials should increase their use of student resource officers and add text tip lines to ensure they’re better protected against violent threats in public schools, officials told lawmakers Wednesday…. House lawmakers held an interim study Wednesday at the Capitol to probe the safety and security issue in Oklahoma’s public schools and what it could cost districts or the Legislature to make classrooms safer. … “There’s no reason that law enforcement should not be training on an annual basis with the schools … so that they’re familiar with the building,” he said. Others ideas include two doors to every classroom, installing active shooter alert systems and metal detectors and requiring all schools to undergo a threat assessment to better prepare, he said. Schools should also find a way to increase the number of counselors and train them to identify indicators linked to violence, he said. … Milner said the district is in the process of phasing in panic buttons for school personnel over the next few months. Those will be installed on employee cell phones, he said. … Kim Carter, director of Oklahoma’s Office of Homeland Security, said school security is a very complicated issue. In 2013, lawmakers updated school security laws by approving mental health first aid training, requiring school intruder drills, mandating that firearms confiscated at school be reported to local law enforcement and requiring the creation of a school security tip line, he said. …
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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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