Survey checks ninth-grade attitudes to alcohol, drugs

STEPS TOWARD PREVENTION

By Heather Kronmueller ~ Southeast Missourian

Every two years during the month of February, ninth graders around the state are asked about their involvement with drugs, alcohol and violence through a Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education survey.

Students are asked a variety of questions: During the past 30 days how many times did you ride in a car or other vehicle driven by someone who had been drinking alcohol? During the past 30 days how many times did you carry a gun? During the past 12 months did you ever seriously consider attempting suicide?

Dee Beck, director of the Safe and Drug Free Schools program for DESE, said the anonymous survey is nothing more than a tool for individual districts to determine where they need to focus preventative resources.

The survey is required for funding for schools participating in the Safe and Drug Free Schools program.

Broad look

DESE doesn't keep individual survey results for each district, but it has kept comprehensive statewide results from each survey since it began in the early 1990s. Results for the 1999-2000 survey are available on the DESE web site at www.dese.state.mo.us.

"The best time to find out if students are participating in harmful behaviors is during the ninth grade," said Beck. "Since a majority of ninth graders participate in the survey, individual districts can compare how their kids are doing with the state."

Not all ninth graders take the survey. The state requires students to have a permission slip signed by their parents in order to take the survey, but even if parents sign the slip students can still back out if they are uncomfortable with the survey.

Seventh, ninth and eleventh grade students in Jackson took the survey last week.

Sam Duncan, director of state and federal programming for Jackson, said he doesn't know the exact percentage of students that took the survey yet, but he expects it to be pretty close to 100.

"We've sent the surveys off and hope to get the results back within the next couple of months," said Duncan. "As soon as we get them our safe and drug free advisory council will meet and set goals based on the results."

The 25-member advisory council, which meets once a month, consists of teachers, parents, business leaders, law enforcement personnel and other community members. Duncan said the council previously listed targeting tobacco use among teens as its top goal.

Infrequent survey

Cape Girardeau students will complete the survey next week.

Jim Watkins, Safe and Drug Free Schools coordinator for the Cape Girardeau area, said a drawback of the survey is that it is only taken once in two years. Following the news and community trends is often a better day-to-day gauge of how preventative resources need to be directed, he said.

Cape Girardeau students will be asked to take part in an additional survey this year.

He said past results from the DESE survey have been very broad, listing regional results instead of individual district results.

To get results for the Cape Girardeau district by itself, Watkins worked with Southeast Missouri State University. The university will administer a survey similar to the DESE survey to students in the district.

"If we're making local decisions we want to know local information," Watkins said. "The survey from Southeast will be very, very similar to the survey printed by DESE."

The main difference between the two surveys is the Southeast survey will not include questions about violence. Watkins said drug and alcohol abuse are more prevalent problems among students in the Cape Girardeau district.

Watkins said students in grades seven and nine will take the DESE survey and students in grades eight and 10 will take the Southeast survey.

In a few months, Watkins said, an advisory committee consisting of 22 teachers and community volunteers will meet to discuss the results. Cape Girardeau's advisory board has scheduled meetings three times a year.

After the last survey the committee thought it would be beneficial to have older students, instead of teachers, relay healthy messages to the younger students.

"The high school students are taking the message that you don't have to smoke to be cool and you don't have to drink to fit in with the younger students," he said.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611 extension 128