Drug and Alcohol Survey: Questions and Answers

On February 4, 2020, the principals from Bandera High School and Bandera Middle School will host a parent information session at Bandera Middle School at 6:30 pm. However, we know that our parents are busy and not always able to attend every school event and parent night. Therefore, the following “anticipated list of most commonly asked questions” has been developed in an attempt to help answer as many questions as possible.

• What is a school drug and alcohol survey is and why it is relevant to our students and our community?
  • A school drug and alcohol survey is a tool used by school leaders across the country to aid in identifying potential behaviors and problems that present risks to the running of a safe and drug free school. Surveys, completed by students, allow our teenagers to tell their side of the story and provide information on an anonymous basis about their perceptions of drug and alcohol use by themselves and their peers

• What are the national trends and are other schools and districts taking part in such surveys?
  • Like almost any middle and high school in the United States, BMS and BHS have experienced unfortunate situations where students have possessed, used, or been under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol at school. This includes offenses for vaping (electronic cigarette use). Vaping is drastically on the rise nationally--both for nicotine and liquid THC (marijuana). For example, “The number of high school students who say they used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days has jumped 75 percent since last year, The Wall Street Journal reports. The preliminary data comes from the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey. About 3 million—or 20 percent—of high school students are vaping, according to the findings. In contrast, last year 1.73 million—or 11.7 percent—used e-cigarettes, according to recently published federal data” (https://drugfree.org/learn/drug-and-alcohol-news/e-cigarette-use-spikes-among-high-school-students/).
  • The Texas School Survey of Drug and Alcohol Use reported that a statistically significant number of 7^th-12^th graders have reported using drugs and/or alcohol in the past year (from the date of survey).

https://texasschoolsurvey.org/Documents/Reports/State/18State712.pdf

• Who are the students who will take part in the survey?
  • The current plan involves administering a survey to all 7^th- 12^th grade students at BMS and BHS.

• How would the survey be administered?
  • The survey would be administered during students’ Enrichment (Advisory) Period, and it would be done so in a way that guarantees students’ anonymity and privacy. It should only take about 10 minutes to complete.

• What is the timeline involved in the survey’s administration and analysis?
  • The current thinking is that the survey could be administered to students on February 19, and that the data from the survey could be analyzed and quantified on or around the time students leave for Spring Break (March 6).

• What questions are being considered for the survey?
  • After reviewing approximately 30 different regional and national surveys and the established literature on the topic, and giving full consideration to our unique needs in Bandera ISD, the following two documents were chosen to provide sample questions from which to model and develop BISD survey questions:
    • Drug Testing in Schools: Attitudes of High School Students (A dissertation by Kimberly Mason, University of New Orleans) Pages- 172-174
    • Texas School Survey of Drug and Alcohol Use (2016)--by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (formerly, Texas Department of State Health Services) Pages A2-A8

• How the survey will remain anonymous for all those involved
  • Staff will provide students with a strict protocol, instructions, and format for which to safeguard student anonymity. Principals, teachers, and Central Office staff will not be able to use an electronic “back door” or any other method to see an individual’s names or responses. Moreover, no student names or email addresses will be used to record data.

• How the survey’s data will be used and for what purpose
  • The survey data will be used to compare BISD secondary student responses (7^th-12^th grade) to state and national responses for the same age group. This will help district and school administrators determine the extent, if any, that BISD might struggle with such issues as compared to other schools in Texas and the United States.