Dec 10, 2018, Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman: BOCES costs up nearly 15 percent in Onteora school district https://www.dailyfreeman.com/news/local-news/boces-costs-up-nearly-percent-in-onteora-school-district/article_a391c354-f8b6-11e8-9f9d-ff15484d3748.html PHOENICIA, N.Y. — The Onteora school district is seeing a more than $500,000 increase in costs for Ulster County BOCES programs in the current academic year. The district's current-year expense for programs provided by the Ulster County Board of Cooperative Educational Services is up 14.91 percent, to $3.41 million. At a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, Dec. 4, officials said most of the additional expenses were for special education programs. The special education program budget, at $1.45 million, was up $374,336, or 25.86 percent. “There are 18 kids enrolled (in special education), where last year there were 10 or 12 kids,” Ulster County BOCES Superintendent Charles Khoury said. “That would account for the cost rise.” Khoury added that special education expenses are driven more by needs that must be addressed than the number of students being served. Expenses for the current school year are up from the $942,012 the district spent three years ago….
top of page
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
bottom of page