Pupils Versed in Violence, Survey Shows : Education: A high percentage of students report frequent contact with a panoply of today’s urban woes.

More than half of Pasadena’s ninth- and 10th-graders participating in a survey last spring say they know someone who has been killed or injured in a gang incident, and 22% of the city’s fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders surveyed say they have witnessed a drive-by shooting.

The findings are contained in a report by the USC Division of Health Behavior Research, which surveyed 1,603 students in fourth through 12th grades last spring at six private and 10 public schools in Pasadena.

More than 75% of the 11th- and 12th-graders in the schools surveyed said they know someone their age who has a gun, and 21% said they have been shot at.

Of these juniors and seniors, 88% said they have tried alcohol.

The survey used an anonymous questionnaire to get student response on violence, gangs and drug abuse. It was commissioned by Day One, a Pasadena coalition of schools, civic leaders and social service agencies formed to battle drug and alcohol abuse. The group plans to use the survey to assess the need for intervention programs.

“We need to take a serious look at what we need to do for our kids,” said Fran Neumann, Day One’s executive director. “These facts will help us do this.”

Principals said the report reflected national trends.

“The schools aren’t manufacturing violence, it’s society,” said Judy Codding, principal of Pasadena High School. She added that teen-agers feel the same fears as anyone today in urban America but that the problem is particularly acute at schools because violence affects students’ ability to learn.

Fran Scoble, head of Westridge, a private school for girls in southwest Pasadena that was part of the survey, said she is not surprised at the level of fear in Pasadena schools. But she maintains that Westridge has fewer problems than the typical public school.

“We share to some degree all the problems that touch all of these schools, but the problems are far less severe here,” Scoble said.

The percentage of students who have tried alcohol was also not a surprise, Scoble said, calling drinking “the biggest problem for middle-class students.”

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education heard preliminary results Tuesday with little comment, but the report has not yet been distributed widely.

In other findings among the students surveyed:

35% of ninth- and 10th-graders have had a gun.

20% of ninth- and 10th- graders have been shot at.

52% of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders fear getting stabbed.

31% of ninth- and 10th-graders have seen a drive-by-shooting.

46% of 11th- and 12th-graders have consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.

38% of 11th- and 12th-graders have smoked marijuana.

50% of ninth- and 10th-graders have seen a drug deal.

5% of 11th- and 12th-graders have used cocaine or crack.

Director of Student Services Jimmy Charles, who compiles campus crime data for Pasadena Unified, said school officials should be cautious in interpreting the survey because results reflect perceptions of crime in the community rather than on school campuses.

“I don’t know what they feel on the streets, (but) students feel safe at Blair High School,” said David Banis, Blair’s principal, who said he has not received the report.

However, there has been school-related violence off-campus recently. This fall, after Blair played a football game against Pasadena High School at Pasadena City College, two groups of youths opened fire on each other in the college parking lot. No one was injured in the melee.

“The importance of this survey is, it highlights the problems we are grappling with,” Pasadena schools Supt. Vera Vignes said. “It reminds us of the compelling issues confronting our young people.”

She cautioned, however, that the results could be skewed by students who misinterpreted questions, which they answered on their own.

Survey Director Luanne Rohrbach declined to compare the answers on a school-by-school basis but suggested that, at least for drug and alcohol abuse, results are similar throughout the district. She said she believed that the survey results reflected the experiences and perceptions of Pasadena students as a whole. (Pasadena’s public schools enroll about 22,000 students.)

The entire survey will be released within a month, Rohrbach said.