The Independent - The Herald 17
May 17, 2018
STRESS FROM PAGE 6
battle with,” Perry said. “It can give outsized impressions of issues: It can make it look like everyone’s life is perfect, and on the flip side, it can make it look like everyone’s on drugs.” More than a statistic Mental health is hard to quantify, with numbers perhaps telling only a partial story. Suicide interventions — which mean only that a mental health provider was worried enough to ask a student if they were considering suicide, not that the student made a suicide attempt — are up sharply at Littleton schools this year, jumping from roughly 200 at this time last year to roughly 300 this year. Again, Perry said, correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, and the spike might simply be due to more kids being comfortable seeking mental health care.
Still, Perry said young folks today have more on their minds. “This is a more anxious and stressed-out generation,” Perry said. “The impacts of being interconnected digitally but not in real life is having impacts on students.” Schools are stepping up their game when it comes to addressing mental health issues, Perry said. Littleton, for instance, now plays host to a studentled effort called Sources of Strength, which reaches out to kids showing signs of struggling, and works to promote a culture of support and resilience, Perry said. The focus on mental health issues can obscure the reality that the majority of kids are getting by just fine, Perry said. “There’s a narrative that all kids are struggling,” Perry said. “There’s been some increase, but the majority of kids are doing OK. When we look at our surveys, our students scored really high feeling safe and comfortable at school.” Moore, the high school junior, said she’s looking forward to the end of the school year. “I’m good now,” Moore said. “The SATs are done.”
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PENSION FROM PAGE 12
hours before it passed. “This is bad policy done in haste,’’ said Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association. The deal represents Colorado’s second pension rescue in the last decade. In 2010, lawmakers cut retirement benefits and increased contributions to stave off a looming insolvency triggered by the Great Recession. The fix fell short, in part because retirees are living longer and the pension’s investments are no longer expected to grow as much as policymakers had previously projected. The latest effort includes safeguards to automatically adjust benefits and contributions as needed to keep the pension on track to pay off its unfunded debt within 30 years.
The Democrat-led House and Republican-led Senate have resolved other top priorities of the 120-day session. In March, lawmakers passed a $28.9 billion budget that boosts funding to transportation and schools. This week, they finalized a related K-12 funding bill that increases spending by $461 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1. On May 8, lawmakers passed a bill seeking voter approval to borrow $2.34 billion for transportation projects. The bill sets aside $645 million for roads over the next two years and would ask voters in 2019 permission to issue $2.34 billion in transportation bonds. The state would owe up to $3.25 billion in borrowing costs over 20 years. Lawmakers on May 9 approved a last-minute compromise to reauthorize the seven-member Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Division until September 2027.
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