Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Student Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Survey: most Rock Ridge students report low substance use; prevention program aims to correct misperceptions
Summary
A district-presented Positive Community Norms survey found most students report drinking less than monthly and showed improved perceptions that peers avoid vaping and marijuana; the presenter said correcting misperceptions is linked to reduced use and urged careful language from adults.
Cassandra Haynes presented results Wednesday from a Positive Community Norms student survey the district administered in February as part of a multi‑year prevention grant.
Haynes said campaign awareness has increased: the share of students reporting monthly or more exposure to the campaign message rose from about 60% last year to 76% in the February window. Survey cleaning left 756 valid responses, she said, and she highlighted trends showing high rates of students reporting alcohol use less than monthly (greater than 90% in the norm data) and improved perceptions that peers would "rather not" use substances.
"Most of our kids are making healthy choices," Haynes told the board, and she urged staff and board members to speak carefully about student behavior so they do not unintentionally raise perceptions that risky behavior is common. She described the program's logic: increase campaign visibility, correct misperceptions about peer behavior, and thereby reduce actual use.
Haynes flagged specific incident counts the district recorded this year: 17 individual vaping violations, two students with multiple vaping violations, one cigarette violation, six cannabis-related violations and three alcohol-related violations. She emphasized those are the infractions the district caught and that the numbers remain "in the tens" rather than hundreds.
Board members asked about the survey's relationship to the Minnesota Student Survey and data validity. Haynes said the presentation used both sources: the local Positive Community Norms survey (shorter, focused on substance use and misperceptions) and comparative items from the Minnesota Student Survey; an external contractor performed data cleaning and provided aggregated results so individual responses remain anonymous.
Haynes said the district is in the fourth year of a five-year grant cohort and will continue targeted messaging and outreach to parents and caregivers to encourage conversations about safe storage of alcohol and cannabis and to reduce misperceptions among students.
Next steps: Haynes offered to share a detailed key-findings report and the slide deck; she asked the board to prioritize language that affirms positive student norms while addressing the small but concerning number of actual infractions.
