Oct 30, 2018, Chicago Tribune: District 64 board endorses plan to add part-time special education teacher at Roosevelt Elementary https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/news/ct-prh-special-education-update-tl-1101-story.html The Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board of Education endorsed a recommendation to add another part-time special education teacher to Roosevelt Elementary School. In addition, four students who were sent out of district in previous years will return to District 64 facilities, and one student will be sent to an out-of-district facility to meet their needs, Director of Student Services Lea Anne Frost told board members during her monthly update on Oct. 22. The additional part-time special education resource teacher is needed because of “the number of students and service minutes identified in [individualized education plans] as well as the anticipated potential for additional student needs that are currently in process,” Frost told the board. In recent weeks, the district’s special education staff received additional training on the process of crafting individualized education plans, or IEPs, which are required by the federal government to determine what services students are to receive and what accommodations must be made for them…. District 64 expanded the Student Services Division this year by three positions: a new elementary school special education coordinator, a new behavior analyst and a new psychologist. In addition, the board set aside $100,000 from its contingency fund to purchase new materials for the special education program….
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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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