Posted on May 22, 2009

School administrators have a lot to worry about on a daily basis, and unfortunately, the instance of drug use and abuse is at the top of the list. For administrators in Saratoga Springs, they have tried to get in front of the issue by conducting a biannual survey to fully understand the problem within their school district.

As the Saratoga News reported, the Prevention Needs Assessment Survey includes an anonymous student survey and an anonymous parent survey. It was designed to assess substance abuse amongst adolescents as well as to gauge anti-social behavior and protective factors that predict problem behavior.

“The results this year are a mixed bag. We are pleased with the middle school findings but are a little concerned with eighth-grade trends,” said Robin Ambrosino, Information Specialist at the Partnership for Prevention, in the Saratoga News report.

“At this age, the most important thing to kids is acceptance by peers. If dominant peers are using alcohol or drugs, others will probably follow. We need to focus more on the transition from eighth grade to high school.”

Administrators determined that one of the main factors driving alcohol and drug use is the students’ perception of how prevalent usage is among their peers. For middle school students, they know that use is low among their peers and therefore there is less pressure to try alcohol or drugs.

This perception makes a drastic change as students enter high school. By the ninth grade, most students believe that 50 percent of their peers are using substances. This false perception has driven the actual usage rate to 25 percent. Both numbers grow larger as the students grow older, showing that perception has more of an impact on reality than reality itself.

The results of these surveys does indicate that more needs to be done at the high school level to change perceptions and try to deter actual use. This could prove to be challenging as media coverage of celebrity use plays a huge role in the perceived glamour associated with substance use. Changing the behaviors of teens may mean changing things on a broader scale.