By
Lee Coleman
Published:
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Daily Gazette
SARATOGA SPRINGS -
Saratoga Springs City School District officials say they hope a
new student survey on drugs, alcohol and risky behavior will
reflect programs instituted to reduce drinking and drug use
among high school seniors.
To view the
entire survey, click
HERE.
The Saratoga
Partnership for Prevention and the district conducted the survey
in late October and early November for students in grades 6
through 12.
Superintendent Janice
White of the city school district said Thursday she hopes new
programs developed at the high school will prove to be effective
when the results of the survey are released in March.
Judy Ekman, executive
director of the Prevention Council of Saratoga County, said the
2006 student survey showed use of alcohol, drugs and risky
behavior among students at the Maple Avenue Middle School were
well below the national average.
By 10th grade, she
said, the high school students used alcohol and drugs at about
the national average, but by 12th grade the students’ use of
alcohol and drugs exceeded the national average.
The Saratoga
Partnership for Prevention, which is an arm of the Prevention
Council, and the school district held community meetings and
follow-up meetings on the drug and alcohol issue last fall.
Out of these meetings,
new intervention programs were created.
White said, for
example, work has been done to encourage good character and
leadership qualities in the high school athletics program. There
is also a mentoring program for ninth-grade students just coming
to the high school on West Avenue from the middle school.
Ekman said the hope is
that the ninth-graders can carry their attitude about not using
alcohol and drugs into the high school and bring it up through
the grades.
Ekman said school
district officials may not see the results of these programs in
the current survey, but the results may start to emerge in the
2010 survey. The Saratoga Partnership for Prevention conducts
the survey every two years.
“The survey measures
substance use, antisocial behavior and risk and protective
factors — those things that put kids at risk for substance use
and other risky behaviors along with factors that protect them
from problem behaviors,” said Courtney Lamport of the Saratoga
Partnership for Prevention, who is coordinating the survey for
the partnership.
The surveys have been
conducted since 2000. Early surveys showed the need for support
of students at the sixth grade level and new intervention
programs, such as the DARE All Star Camp for children going into
sixth grade, were created.
“While regular
substance use decreased in most categories for grades 9 through
11, by 12th grade survey results showed that Saratoga teens were
binge-drinking and using marijuana at rates significantly higher
than the national average,” Lamport said in a statement. |
