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Alcohol, Drug Use in Schools Discussed at School Board

05.16.13

May 16, 2013
SaratogaWire.com
By Laura Rappaport

Back in 2000, preteens in Saratoga Springs were drinking alcohol at alarming rates. Twenty-five percent of 8th graders and 20 percent of 7th graders surveyed said they’d had a drink in the past month – even nine percent of sixth graders said they had.

This was clearly not healthy and the community decided to do something about it. Through outreach, education and parent involvement, things began to turn around, according to the Prevention Council, Saratoga’s non-profit substance abuse prevention umbrella organization.

Twelve years later, use by sixth graders is so low that they aren’t even surveyed any more. And middle-schoolers in general seem to be abusing drugs and alcohol less.

Now the concern is ninth grade, with that stressful transition from middle to high school setting kids up for more risky behaviors.

The number of students reporting that they have had a drink or smoked marijuana in the last 30 days doubled from eighth to ninth grade, according to the just-released results of a bi-annual survey conducted in the fall by the Council’s Partnership for Prevention.

“That difference between middle school and high school is a big issue,” says Robin Ambrosino, the Prevention Council’s marketing and communications manager.

The Partnership’s Youth Survey asks kids in 7th through 12th grades a battery of questions about their drinking and drug habits, and – almost more revealing—what they think their peers are doing. They also surveyed parents about their attitudes toward substance use and what they think their kids are up to.

On Tuesday, Ambrosino presented the results of the 2012 Youth Survey to the Saratoga Springs City School District Board of Education. It was designed to assess substance abuse; anti-social behavior; and risk and protective factors that predict problem behaviors.

The transition from 8th grade to the high school “brings with it a significant increase in substance abuse,” says Ambrosino. It’s not known exactly why, but, she says, the move to the big school is stressful. Saratoga Springs kids also have a perception that high-schoolers are drinking and doing drugs, even if it’s not actually the norm.

“They sense a culture of use when they get to high school… Their sense that it’s here drives that behavior.”

For example, she says, 53 percent of this year’s ninth-graders believed that classmates drink, while just 22 percent of them actually reported drinking in the past 30 days.

Even seniors’ perception is skewed: about 75 percent think their peers drink, while 52 percent reported they do.  Still, that number is some 12 points above the national average, and is troubling to prevention workers.

Indeed, Saratoga Springs 10th and 12th graders reported drinking, binge drinking and smoking pot at 10 points above the national average for their age groups.

“The community needs to band together to provide positive outlets for that angst and craving for excitement that kids this age feel,” Ambrosino says.

Across the board, cigarettes are the only substance with a continually declining use rate.

Marijuana use reflects the slow steady rise nationally, she says. This could be partly due to efforts to legalize the drug in some states.

“The numbers get quite big in 10th grade and 9th is trending up,” Ambrosino says.

Prescription drug use is still low in Saratoga Springs. “This has been a tricky category for us,” says Ambrosino, noting that although kids are talking about it, “the numbers are not bearing it out right now.” They might have experimented, but aren’t using regularly.

Overall, she says, “the perception is that there is much more drug use here than there actually is.”

A funny thing about perception is that parents often put on rose-colored glasses when discussing their own children.

In last fall’s parent survey, 86 percent said their children never use alcohol, but a large number of high school students report not only drinking, but binge drinking – consuming five or more drinks in a row. Binge rates were: 14 percent of freshmen; 25 percent of sophomores; 26 percent of juniors; and 32 percent of seniors.

The parent survey was available on SurveyMonkey.com in January and February. Of the thousands of parents in the target group, 387 responded.

After all its work on teen health over the past dozen years, the Partnership for Prevention’s federal grant ends in September, and the organization will undergo severe cutbacks.

Ambrosino says that parents, teachers and community leaders all play key roles in curbing adolescent substance abuse. The Partnership recommends that collaboration continue among organizations that work with youth. The school district should enforce policies regarding substance use, and make clear, strong positive messages about staying sober. The district can also continue the youth survey in a less expensive online format.

“We want prevention to be part of what they hear about in school and at home,” she says.  “After 12 years, we feel very glad that we’ve established these relationships and that prevention is on the agenda of the community.”

– See more at: http://saratogawire.com/article/1173/130516-school-board-hears-about-drug-use/#sthash.X9qyfS7f.dpuf

Survey Aims to Assess Parent Awareness of Kids’ Drug and Alcohol Use

01.28.13

January 28, 2013

POSTED BY Laura Rappaport
Saratoga Wire

What do parents know about their kids’ drug and alcohol habits? That’s a question the Saratoga Partnership for Prevention asks every two years.

The Partnership is asking parents of kids in grades 7-12 in the Saratoga Springs City School District to take a brief online survey about adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use by going to Survey Monkey. The process is completely anonymous and takes less than 15 minutes.

The parent questionnaire is the companion survey to the Youth Prevention Needs Assessment given every other fall to all Saratoga Springs 7th – 12th graders. It’s designed to track the attitudes and perceptions of a random sample of Saratoga Springs parents, says Robin Ambrosino, marketing and communications manager for the Prevention Council, which houses the partnership.

It’s also a way to gauge the similarities and differences between parents’ perceptions of teen behavior and the behavior teens actually report. Results of both surveys will be publicized in April.

“We want to find out if parents think their kids are engaging in the behaviors that kids say they are,” Ambrosino says. “What we’ve found over the years is that parents underestimated by a pretty large margin the behaviors kids are participating in,” she says. What it comes down to is that many parents think their high school kids are not drinking beer or smoking pot, but kids report they are doing those risky – and illegal – things.

The good news, however, is that drinking is down at Saratoga Springs High School. Ambrosino says that in 2008, drinking by SSHS seniors was well above the national average, but it’s been coming down over the past few years.

Sixth graders are no longer surveyed because in the past their answers showed such a low rate of drug and alcohol use.

She notes that while there is a big spike in drinking and drug use when kids enter ninth grade, that jump isn’t actually as big as it’s reputed to be.

Thus, she says, one goal of the Partnership for Prevention is to help the community change perceptions and the culture at the high school. So, while kids think it’s cool to drink in high school, the community needs to show them it’s not – and kids need to be aware that just because they’ve started high school doesn’t mean that everyone’s experimenting with alcohol.

“Fewer kids drink than they think,” Ambrosino says.

She said while some kids inflate their usages rates, the surveys have built-in checks and balances that help weed out questionnaires that have inconsistent responses.

In order to have a representative adult sample, 350 parents need to complete the 23 questions on the online form. Parents’ answers will be used to help the Partnership plan parenting programs, community events that send consistent messages about underage substance use, and ways to support families as their children progress through the teen years, Ambrosino says.

The Saratoga Partnership for Prevention is a program of the Prevention Council. It is made up of youth, parents, and individuals representing key sectors and organizations concerned about youth in the Saratoga Springs school district.

The survey continues through mid-February.

Editorial Perils of alcohol and inaction

04.20.12

 

April 20, 2012
Reader’s View Editorial
By Brian Farr

Fourteen young people and one parent were recently arrested in an international identification fraud ring, and all to acquire alcohol. Once again I feel a responsibility to remind people about the dangers of this drug, even in our picturesque city.

I would like to shake the hand of the woman who spotted the underage purchaser and spoke up. Very courageous, and she may have saved a life with her actions by preventing an alcohol- fueled tragedy. I have a hard time fathoming what the father who assisted in these crimes was thinking.

As a substance abuse counselor for over a decade in our fair city, I have continually run into similar parents and adults whose heads are buried deep in the sands of denial as they tell themselves “it’s only alcohol,” or “if I allow them to drink at my house they will be safe,” or, like the ignorant adult who assisted these teenagers in acquiring the fake IDs: “Even if it might get someone seriously injured, raped or killed, at least my kids and their friends will think I’m cool.”

It remains at the top of the list as the leading cause of preventable accidents, sexual abuse crimes, and death among teenagers. And that even applies in Saratoga.Young people get a mixed message here. Saratoga tends to encourage addiction, even if Todd Garafano would rather that we did not talk about that because it may affect revenue. I get it. It’s his job to sell our addictions to people.I wonder if he has taken the time, like Christian Mathiesen, whose job it is to try to keep us all safe, to go down to Caroline Street in the wee, violent hours of the morning to face the truth — it is toxic down there.

Toxic is the perfect word. A powder keg of bad potential. The death of a young man a few years ago was not enough to change things. Nor was the preventable, drunken riot during the last year.

But Saratoga and many Saratogians do not want to hear or think about that. We like the money from alcoholism and gambling addiction. It keeps the flower beds watered and helps with all the construction of any free space left. Keep that money coming!

There is more to Saratoga than addiction and greed. In fact, there was a conference in town last weekend that proves it.

Many of you may not have heard about it because the 1,000 or so young people that attended did not wreck Caroline Street, or riot, or contribute to the available toxicity. These young people had all made a choice to live their lives abstinent from alcohol or drugs.I hope they had a great time here. I also hope that our local youth and parents will learn from their example that not everyone needs to use drugs to have “fun.”

Brian Farr is a substance abuse counselor who lives in Wilton.

Survey Shows Drug, Alcohol Use Down

04.29.11

April 29, 2011
By LUCIAN McCARTY
The Saratogian

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Students in the graduating class of Saratoga Springs High School are generally using less drugs, alcohol and tobacco than their year-2000 counterparts according to the results of a November 2010 survey the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Council presented to the Board of Education on Thursday night.

“Overall, the trends are starting to go down,” said Maureen Cary, coordinator of the Saratoga Partnership for Prevention with the Prevention Council.

Fifty percent of high school students and eighth graders were surveyed randomly in their gym classes. According to Cary, the results are also cross-checked by a computer to ensure consistency in the answers of individual surveys — the ones with “goofy answers” are tossed.

Though Saratoga Springs High Schoolers have been on a steady decline in most categories since 2000, they remain above the national average for every category save two: cigarette and heroin usage.

“In a resort community — like Saratoga Springs — or any resort community you are going to see higher use rates,” Cary said. She explained in many ways it is due to the density of alcohol concentration and the culture.

Students were asked about whether they had used various substances within the past 30 days. Almost half of juniors and seniors (47.6 percent and 49.4 percent) said they had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days and just over 30 percent in each class admitted to binge drinking — that is, imbibing more than five drinks in succession.

“A large percentage of those who report drinking are binge drinking,” Cary said.

Cigarette use dropped to less than half what it was in 2000 — from 35.5 percent to 14.1 percent.

Marijuana use was also in decline, going from a recorded high of 35.9 percent in 2008 to 22.8 percent in November.

But Cary said the current senior class is somewhat of an “unusual group” that has generally lower numbers than most others. “They are very low risk.”

Robin Ambrosino, also with the Prevention Council, said the perception of drug and alcohol use among teens is much higher than the actual usage. While almost 50 percent of students admitted to having imbibed liquor within 30 days of the survey and about 23 percent of students admitted to having smoked marijuana, when students were asked how much of the student body smoked marijuana or drank, the results were around 70 percent for both.

“In our focus groups, we heard from kids who have no trouble telling you everybody smokes pot and everybody drinks,” Cary said, but she said her organization is actively trying to promote the facts by working with students to incorporate the facts into artwork.

“The fact is, 78 percent said ‘no,’” school board member Charles Phillips said. “I’d like to see that in six-foot high letters somewhere. That goes against the ‘cool’ message.”

Phillips was referring to another aspect of the study that indicated as some students entered the high school, they saw things such as alcohol, tobacco and other drug usage as “cool,” something Cary said was a problem area.

In fact, as students made the transition between eighth grade and high school, the number of students who had tried alcohol, binge drinking and marijuana more than quadrupled in all areas. In eighth grade, they were 6, 1 and 2 percent, respectively. In ninth grade, they were 23, 8, and 11 percent respectively.

“The transitions are challenging for kids,” Cary said.

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