Dec 7, 2018, CBS2, Salt Lake City: Shortage of special ed teachers leaves school staff vulnerable to violence https://kutv.com/news/beyond-the-books/shortage-of-special-ed-teachers-leaves-school-staff-vulnerable-to-violence Jamie Moffitt had a substitute teacher job lined up at Rose Springs Elementary in Tooele County. She was excited — she was about to do what she’d always wanted to do: Work with kids. The morning, however, started with some concerning warnings from people who greeted her at the school’s front desk. Seasoned school staffers told Moffitt she should change her clothes to something more durable, and she certainly needed to take out her earrings because, by the end of the day, one of the special education students she would be working with would surely rip them out. … Those initial feelings of elation soon changed, however, when Moffitt, paired with a student school officials admit was the most challenging in Tooele County, began to be assaulted on a regular basis. By her sixth month, Moffitt says she had been bitten more than 100 times, had her hair pulled more than 100 times, had suffered three concussions, and had gone to the hospital three times as well. During all of this, Moffitt says she never got any training, with the exception of sexual harassment guidelines. … Moffitt believes the district kept her in the classroom because they simply had no one else to do the job. Jackson says he has a concerning shortage of special education teachers. He says he has 75 but could use 100. Tooele is not the only district with this problem. There is a critical shortage of special education teachers and assistants nationwide. That shortage puts under-trained assistants like Moffitt at risk. Beyond the Books requested Worker’s Compensation information from every district in Utah. Based on that data, staffers working with special education students are far and away in the most dangerous jobs in Utah schools. Over the past three years in the state's largest districts — Alpine, Granite and Canyons —nearly 400 cases, or 70 percent of worker's compensation claims from those districts, were filed by school staff who were assaulted by students in special education classrooms. …
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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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