School Survey Finds Steady Drug and Alcohol Use

Thirty-two percent of fifth graders at Washington Elementary have seen another kid at school with a weapon. And 42 percent of 11^th graders at Redondo Union have had at least one full glass of alcohol in the past month.

Such are the findings of a major survey of students on issues of drug and alcohol use, safety within the school and self perception presented to the board of education on Tuesday. The school district has posted the results on its website.

The California Healthy Kids Survey, conducted every other year, sampled as much as 80 percent of the student population for grades 5, 7, 9 and 11 last year.

Assistant Supt. of Student Services Frank DeSena gave an overview of district-wide statistics during a school board meeting Tuesday night. He said that  a pockknife is considered a weapon in the survey.

 "We haven't really seen significant changes [district-wide]," DeSena said. "I couldn't say that we have really reduced alcohol and drug usage, but it didn't seem like it was significantly increasing either."

The data on the district website is available as a PDF for each individual school. The best way to glean significance from the survey was to look at the individual school findings, DeSena said.

A cursory review of the survey, for example, indicated that no fifth graders reported being hit or pushed on campus most of the time at Alta Vista and Beryl Heights elementary schools. However, at Birney Elementary School 22 percent of fifth graders reported being hit or pushed most of the time while on school property.

On the plus side, 59 percent of RUHS juniors are happy to be there.

School board member Drew Gamet, who urged further examination of the survey results, asked how reliable the data was. Supt. Steven Keller characterized the survey numbers as "very solid."

The survey was funded by the California Department of Education and conducted by WestEd, a research organization.