Aug 28, 2018, Chicago Tribune: New District 64 special ed director promises 'robust' program for students with disabilities http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/news/ct-prh-park-ridge-schools-follow-tl-0830-story.html The new director of special education for Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 vowed Monday to improve services for students with disabilities by retraining the district’s staff on how to develop federally mandated plans for each student in the special education program. “We will be more aggressive in developing a robust special education program,” said Lea Anne Frost, who started as the district’s director of student services less than two months ago. Frost is one of four new employees in the student services division, which the board agreed earlier this year to expand by three positions: a new elementary school special education coordinator, a new behavior analyst and a new psychologist. The additional psychologist allowed Frost “to balance caseloads, so psychologists can be more attentive,” according to a report she prepared for the board. After Frost started July 1, the district’s special education staff received additional training on the process of crafting individualized education plans, which are required by the federal government to determine what services students are to receive and what accommodations must be made for them. The district has also changed how it prepares those plans “to ensure greater compliance in identifying student needs. … That issue prompted several parents of students with significant disabilities to urge District 64 leaders to overhaul the entire special education program, saying they were dissatisfied with the treatment of their children and frustrated that they had not been consulted about changes….
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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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