Dear Friends,
I’d like to wish all of you a Happy 2011! Thanks to
everyone who responded to my last letter. As you may have
figured out by now, I’ve been trying a different approach
with my monthly “Newsletters” this year and the
reactions I have received from you have been great. Since
I do get A LOT of email, I do not always have time to respond
individually to each of your replies. Please know that I do
read everything you send and your feedback and opinions are
definitely appreciated.
This month, I’d like to use this letter as a part of
our communication of the results of the “Youth Risk
Behavior Survey” (YRBS), which was administered in April
of 2010 to 984 BHS students in grades 9-12 and 545 Chenery
Middle School students in grades 7 and 8. Members of the Belmont
Public Schools’ Health, Safety and Security Advisory
Committee will be presenting the results of the YRBS at several
community-wide meetings between January 10-17, including the
Selectmen’s Meeting on 1/10, School Committee Meeting
on 1/18 and the BHS PTO Meeting on 1/12. The Health Safety
and Security Advisory Committee is chaired by Superintendent
Entwistle and is made up of representatives from both the
schools, including administration, guidance and health services
and the town, including the Selectmen’s Office, Department
of Public Health, and the Fire and Police Departments.
The responses of BHS students on the survey highlight some
examples of the positive behaviors our children are engaging
in, as well as some disturbing, but not necessarily surprising
trends. On the positive side, BHS students reported that they
were making healthy choices regarding diet, exercise, and
how they spent their “free time.” For example,
over 60% of students reported they spent at least 60 minutes
exercising during four of the seven days prior to taking the
survey and 75% reported that they participated in at least
one team sport in the past year. About 65% of students reported
watching one hour or less television per day and almost 70%
reported that they spent at least one hour in the 30 days
prior to the survey engaging in “community service activities.”
Students also reported an incidence of cigarette use that
was substantially lower than the state average, 31.1% versus
46% statewide. Other positive areas of student response included
a low incidence rate in the use of “hard” drugs,
such as cocaine and ecstasy, of around 2%. Another positive
area was the relatively low incidence of the use of cigarettes
(4.3%), alcohol (2.6%) and marijuana (5.6%) on school property.
Given recent history both in Belmont and in Massachusetts,
I am not surprised at some of the areas of concern illuminated
in this survey. The responses of BHS students regarding bullying
and cyber-bullying echoes what we have been witnessing both
statewide and nationally. One fourth, or 248 of 984 BHS respondents,
reported that they had been the victim of bullying at school
and one-fifth or 189 students reported being threatened through
electronic communication in the 12 months prior to the survey.
It is clear that our students are not immune to engaging
in the practice of bullying and we will work to better educate
our students to prevent them from becoming “bullies.”
As per Massachusetts Law, the Belmont School Committee submitted
its Anti-Bullying
Policy in mid-December, and we’re in the process
of implementing our District
Bullying Intervention Plan at BHS, including training
our staff and identifying suitable anti-bullying curriculum
materials.
The YRBS also documents the anecdotal information we’ve
collected regarding the effects of stress at BHS. Exactly
900 of the 984 respondents (90%) reported that they had felt
overwhelmed by stress at least once during the past school
year. Additionally, 19.2% of respondents reported feeling
so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks in a row
that they stopped doing some usual activities, and 17.8% reported
that they had engaged in attempting to purposely injure themselves
through cutting, burning or bruising in the past 12 months.
Over 10%, 100 respondents, reported “seriously considering”
suicide and 7.9%, 78 students, reported “actually attempting
suicide” during the 12 months prior to the survey.
This issue of student stress at BHS was brought to the forefront
of our discussions at the Community Dialogue in October 2009
and was reinforced by the tragedy that occurred at BHS only
one week later. In order to address this issue, and as a part
of the BHS 18 Month Improvement Plan, we formed the “Bringing
Balance to Belmont Committee.” Chaired by Guidance Counselor,
Amanda Rei, this committee is made up of all BHS constituent
groups, including administration, teachers, parents and students
and is charged with more fully exploring the issue of student
stress at BHS and developing recommendations for addressing
it.
For the past five years we’ve taken a very proactive
approach to addressing the issue of substance abuse by BHS
students. This approach has followed a three-pronged plan
of “education,” “engineering,” and
“enforcement.” We’ve been able to host a
wide array of educational speakers for students and parents
on the dangers of teen substance abuse. We’ve also implemented
structural changes, such as the use of a dance contract and
requiring all students to ride busses to the prom to help
ensure they are making positive decisions. Finally, we’ve
developed and held to meaningful consequences for students
who do make the wrong choices. I think that this approach
has made a world of difference in changing students’
attitudes towards substance abuse at school functions, and
as a result, we have seen a large reduction in the number
of students we find to be under the influence at school events.
Unfortunately, as the results of the survey seem to suggest,
we have not been as successful in changing student and community
attitudes regarding substance abuse outside of school as the
reported frequency of use by students during “off-school”
hours remains high. Almost half of the responding students
(445 responses, or 45.2%) reported having at least one drink
of alcohol and over one-quarter (262 responses, or 26.6%)
reported using marijuana in the thirty days prior to the survey.
Nearly one-third (297 students, or 30.2%) of the respondents
reported they had engaged in the practice of “binge
drinking,” or having five or more drinks within a few
hours in the 30 days prior to the survey. A startling 40%
(394 responses) reported that they had attended parties held
in homes in Belmont where alcohol use was allowed by adults
during the twelve months prior to the survey. Also troubling
was that 149 students (15.1%) reported that they had taken
a prescription medication that was not prescribed for them
in order to get high. One school-related area of concern regarding
drugs was that nearly one-fourth (24.4%) of respondents reported
being offered illegal drugs on school property.
The administration of the YRBS last year was an effort that
exemplified how we can work together as a community to produce
a meaningful result. Our decision to administer the YRBS grew
out of the Belmont Public School’s 18 Month Improvement
Plan’s “Goal #4: The Belmont Public School organization
will ensure the safety and security of the school community,
promote healthy choices, and support the social and emotional
growth of every student,” which was developed through
the process of the Community Dialogue in October of 2009.
The Parent Teacher Organizations of Belmont High School and
Chenery Middle School as well as the Belmont Police Department’s
DARE Foundation generously provided the funding for the administration,
data collection and analysis of the YRBS. The Health, Safety
and Security Committee, itself an example of community collaboration,
will be presenting these results not only to the Belmont School
Committee, but also to the Board of Selectmen.
Our next steps in addressing the issues identified here will
also require a collaborative effort on the part of the entire
Belmont Community. As a school and district, we have taken
many steps to address the issues that have been presented
in this survey, but we do not have the ability to solve any
one of these problems entirely on our own. The scope and influence
of the school system is not all reaching. Rather, we can only
function as one part of a community-wide response. For example,
while the schools can and will do what is necessary to address
the issue of cyber-bullying, for the most part, the use of
a computer to threaten or harass another child is something
that is done outside of the school and during night and weekend
hours. It is therefore outside of the immediate control of
school personnel. This is just one of the many examples that
come to mind that make it clear that we need to work together
as an entire community to find solutions for the education
of our children in order to prevent them from engaging in
these risky behaviors.
I urge you to attend one of the meetings on January 10th,
January 12th or January 18th to learn more about the results
of the survey and to join in the discussion regarding the
next steps the community should take to appropriately address
them. A report of the complete findings of the YRBS will also
be made available on the Belmont Public Schools’ and
the Belmont Department of Public Health’s websites.
As is all too clear from reading local and national news,
the consequences for not addressing these issues can be tragic.
Sincerely,
Michael M. Harvey, Ed.D
Principal
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