Some days, readers might wonder why we continue to share the dire news from The United Kingdom and Ireland about the crushing expenses of special education.  Anne Dachel tracks these stories, as a warning for all of us, no matter where we live.  Special Education used to be a tiny part of budgets, but as pediatric health has been devastated over the last 30+ years, SpEd is taking over schools. It's not just autism.  Children are simply not able to learn and attend a school day as there once were. And that's the big question we've been asking for so long. WHAT has happened to children? The answer used to be, "Provide special education." IDEA was a blessing to families with disabled kids. Today? It rages out of control and one has to ask how schools are expected to keep up while ensuring education to all?

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By Anne Dachel

The pace of special education is bankrupting districts like BristolThe city of Bristol in southwest England has a problem. Just when it seemed like councils in England had bottomless cashboxes to spend on special needs students, it looks like they don’t.

The school budget in Bristol, a city of half a million residents, will be $71 million in the red by this coming March. AND if things don’t improve, predictions are the deficit could reach $155 million in five years.

Sept 29, 2023, Bristol Post: Schools budget deficit could hit £58m [$71M] by March due to rising special needs demand

In the next few days Bristol City Council will start consulting parents on changes to the education budget

The schools budget in Bristol could face a whopping £58-million black hole by next March due to rising demand for special needs education. Without taking action to cut costs, the deficit in Bristol City Council’s schools budget is forecast to reach £127 million [$155M] by 2028.

 AND the national government has allowed local councils to go into debt over special ed costs.

City Hall chiefs have just three years to balance the books in the dedicated schools grant budget, as councils are normally banned from spending more than budgeted for and carrying deficits. But the government has given councils special permission until March 2026.

There was a meeting about this, but the public wasn’t allowed to watch.

Headteachers discussed the cost pressures with council bosses during a schools forum meeting on Tuesday, September 26. These meetings are normally broadcast on the council’s website for members of the public and press to watch, however this one was not.

As expected, this article tells us that there are MORE SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS. Two terms are used that should be cause for concern. It isn’t just kids with special education needs, it’s “high needs” and the “complexity” of the needs

A report to the schools forum said: “The main drivers of forecast overspend remain high-needs top up and placements costs, resulting from increasing EHCPs [education health and care plans] and complexity of children with special educational needs. The unmitigated deficit forecast position at the end of 2023/24 could reach £58,170,000.

Schools need to come up with a plan to improve their “long-term financial sustainability.”

“Education and financial services are working closely with the sector to explore options to bring school finance back to sustainable footing. All schools forecasting a deficit have been notified of the need to produce a robust plan to demonstrate and secure their long-term financial sustainability.”

Council staff have met with headteachers and governors to “explore affordable solutions”. …

The cost is unsustainable

At the end of the last financial year, the dedicated schools grant budget had spent £15 million [$18M] more than was budgeted for, leaving a cumulative deficit of £40 million [$49M].

Spending on the high needs block takes up about a fifth of the total DSG budget, which is £420 million this year.

It’s unclear whether the government will extend its special permission allowing councils to run deficits in their schools budget, known as a statutory instrument. Earlier this year, one council accountant warned that if Bristol doesn’t balance the books by then, and the statutory instrument wasn’t extended, the “council will run out of money”.

Green Councillor Tony Dyer said many councils were facing the same problems. Speaking during an audit committee on Monday, September 25, he said: “It’s a similar situation for pretty much every other local authority. If the government does not continue the [statutory instrument] provision, there may be some major problems right across the country.”

Unstoppable into 

The number of parents in Bristol requesting an education health and care needs assessment has risen dramatically over the past few years. In 2019, the council received 626 requests, rising to 728 in 2020, 850 in 2021 and 1,001 in 2022.

Any “sustainability” plan they come up with isn’t going to work.

The last paragraph said it all. More and more disabled kids are flooding schools. That is the real problem, the one no one wants to face.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Join us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE