Category: Environment,

Flint weighs school closures as it grapples with special ed costs

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Local Interest,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Fueling the district’s economic problems is the fact that 24% of the 3,750 students in Flint Community Schools are designated as special education, a number that is nearly twice as high as the 13.2% statewide average.

…Flint’s water was contaminated with lead when officials used corrosive river water from April 2014 to October 2015 that wasn’t properly treated. In children, lead exposure can result in serious effects on IQ, ability to pay attention and academic achievement. 

Flint weighs school closures as it grapples with special ed costs

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Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Local Interest,, Modern Parenting,, Schools,Leave a comment

The contamination of this long-struggling city’s water exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children’s developing brains and nervous systems. Requests for special education or behavioral interventions began rising four years ago, when the water contamination became public, bolstering a class-action lawsuit that demanded more resources for Flint’s children.

…The percentage of the city’s students who qualify for special education services has nearly doubled, to 28 percent, from 15 percent the year the lead crisis began, and the city’s screening center has received more than 1,300 referrals since December 2018. The results: About 70 percent of the students evaluated have required school accommodations for issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as A.D.H.D.; dyslexia; or mild intellectual impairment.

…Pediatricians here caution against overdiagnosing children as irreparably brain damaged, if only to avoid stigmatizing an entire city. 

…The suit accuses the school systems of violating federal and state laws, including the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, by failing to identify students who could qualify for special education services, by failing to provide the mandated instructional services to those who do qualify and by punishing children for disability-related behavior.

Students were denied assessments for education plans or behavioral intervention plans, and then were segregated from their peers, secluded and restrained, repeatedly sent home from school, expelled or arrested, the lawsuit said.

…The district ignored her pleas to accommodate his A.D.H.D., which his pediatrician said was exacerbated by elevated lead levels.

…Bethany Dumanois, who has taught in Flint for 25 years, works two jobs to keep teaching because she said she cannot abandon children whose discolored, rash-covered skin and chunks of exposed scalp haunt her. In the earlier days of the crisis, she spent class time addressing questions from her students about whether they would die from the water like their class lizard, a bearded dragon, did.

…Instead of investing in more teachers, social workers and special education aides, she said the district had pushed laptop computers and iPads, “just jumping on any bandwagon, trying to sugarcoat what’s happening with these kids.”

On a recent night at a local restaurant, Ms. Pascal, the 23-year Flint teaching veteran, vented over the “injustices everywhere.” The district adopted a new reading program with no money to buy the instructional materials. She had been asked to identify a handful of her students for a new behavior support program, but wants to include all 21.

She thinks about quitting, but said she refuses to leave another vacancy for the district to fill.

Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water – The New York Times

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To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Middle East,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Religion,Leave a comment

The government’s inability to provide basic services, including 24-hour electricity and garbage collection, is rooted in an agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war nearly 30 years ago. The deal divided power between the nation’s 18 recognized religious sects, effectively institutionalizing corruption, with each group able to dole out government jobs, contracts, favors and social services to its followers.

…The perpetual garbage crisis is only the most pungent example. It last exploded into public view in 2015, when the country’s political elite squabbled over a lucrative waste-management contract as mountains of uncollected trash fouled the streets of Beirut. A wave of protests ensued.

The stopgap solution was to build two new landfills. Three years after they opened, the landfills have only relocated the garbage crisis to the coast, and they are fast threatening to hit capacity.

…Employees dumped trash and toxic waste directly into the Mediterranean.

…Mr. Khoury’s company was dumping trash into the landfill without sorting it, despite a contractual requirement that recyclables be separated and hazardous material be removed.

Moreover, she found, the landfill’s breakwaters in the Mediterranean were not keeping the trash out of the water. Garbage and the toxic liquid oozing from it were going straight into the sea.

…For several years, the government has promoted incineration as a long-term solution, despite objections from environmentalists and scientists.

In June, the environment minister, Fadi Jreissati, told The Daily Star, a local newspaper, that he did not think Lebanon was “qualified” to regulate the incinerators.

…A major reason that Lebanon does not produce enough electricity for its four million people, experts say, is the powerful lobby of generator owners, whose machines provide power during daily blackouts, as well as the $1.2 billion-a-year diesel industry that fuels them.

..Hospitals, roads, schools and other projects are distributed to favored contractors according to sectarian quotas that ensure every group benefits, regardless of necessity.

To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage – The New York Times

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Elkhart Schools teams up with program to package unused food into take-home meals

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

“Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system,” said Jim Conklin, Cultivate. “You don’t always think of a school.”

It rescues the unused food.

…20 students will receive a backpack with eight individual frozen meals every Friday until the end of school.

Elkhart Schools teams up with program to package unused food into take-home meals | WSBT

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Kauai’s Waimea High School gets a taste of new farm-to-table menu

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Hawaii,, Schools,Leave a comment

“It’s so important, I believe, for the people in the state of Hawaii to have food that’s locally grown, nutritious, delicious, and just easily accessible,” says First Lady of Hawaii Dawn Ige. “As an educator, I know how important a healthy meal is. If students have a healthy meal in their stomach, it just makes them feel better, so learning becomes a more natural and more exciting thing for them to do.”

Farm-to-school is one thing, but farm-to-state is an even bigger goal. Aside from the 100,000 meals that the Department of Education puts out a day, the prisons serve both the corrections officers and inmates. Senator Kouchi estimates that that’s another 13,000 meals, and points out that there’s also the state hospitals to take into consideration.

“If we hit this goal, we can more than double our food production here in Hawaii,” says Senator Kouchi.

Kauai’s Waimea High School gets a taste of new farm-to-table menu – HI Now

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Towns like Mammoth want control of Forest Service recreation

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

“The Forest Service is overwhelmed,” he said, by 21st century challenges its founders could never have imagined: climate change, budget cuts, electric mountain bikes.

…Called the Eastern Sierra Sustainable Recreation Partnership, the project would establish a new economic alliance among the Forest Service and the communities of Mammoth Lakes and Bishop and three counties — Inyo, Mono and Alpine. Local government agencies would take the lead in developing water systems and sewers, roads, campground services, restrooms, trails and signage in some of the Sierra’s most heavily visited corners.

The idea is popular in mountain towns that have struggled with economic development, but it worries some conservationists and local officials who want the region to retain its wild spaces and rustic personality.

Towns like Mammoth want control of Forest Service recreation – Los Angeles Times

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EPA to ease rules on waste from coal-fired power plants

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The Trump administration’s proposals weaken rules dealing with the residue from burning coal, known as coal ash, as well as the residue rinsed off of filters installed on smoke stacks. Both are often mixed with water and stored in giant pits that could leach into groundwater or be released directly into local waterways.

The rollbacks, which were spurred by a court decision ordering EPA to overhaul the use of unlined ponds, target 2015 Obama administration rules that required power plants to invest in wastewater treatment technology and monitoring of coal ash ponds, measures they estimated would stop some 1.4 billion pounds of coal ash from entering rivers and streams.

Overnight Energy: Trump formally pulls out of landmark Paris climate pact | EPA to ease rules on waste from coal-fired power plants | States, green groups sue to save Obama lightbulb rules | TheHill

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The Energy 202: ExxonMobil goes on trial over accusations it misled investors about climate change costs

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

When talking to investors, the company estimated that the regulatory cost per ton of carbon would rise to $80 per ton of carbon by 2040 in certain developed countries, according to New York’s complaint filed in October. But inside the company, when planners were deciding where to invest, they pegged that cost at just $40 per ton. 
The Energy 202: ExxonMobil goes on trial over accusations it misled investors about climate change costs – The Washington Post

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