Jan 31, 2019, Exton (PA) Mercury: Phoenixville schools' $96M preliminary budget has $2.2M deficit, may raise taxes above 2.3% cap https://www.pottsmerc.com/news/phoenixville-schools-m-preliminary-budget-has-m-deficit-may-raise/article_89ae34da-2576-11e9-b0fb-6f05fbf56c2b.html The $96 million preliminary 2019-2020 school budget up for a vote Feb. 11 has a $2.2 million deficit even if taxes are raised by 2.3 percent. If adopted unchanged, it would translate into a $95 tax hike for owners of property assessed at $135,000, the district's median assessment, according to a presentation made to the school board Jan. 14. But taxes in the school district could go beyond the 2.3 percent cap set by Pennsylvania's Act 1. In a legal notice published in The Mercury, the district also announced that it may seek "exceptions" to the tax cap, which is called an "index." Under Act 1, school boards can adopt a budget that exceeds its annual index either by seeking voter approval in the spring primary, an extremely rare occurrence, or by seeking "exceptions" for a few specified reasons. One of those specified reasons is special education costs which, according to the presentation the state underfunded in Phoenixville by $3.7 million in the current school year. Salaries and benefits are usually the largest portion of any school budget and in the past year, six of the 10 positions added to the budget were for full-time special education aides and two more for English language development, both of which were listed in the budget presentations as "unfunded state mandates." …
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
Search
bottom of page