VENTURA : Schools to Survey Attitudes on Drugs

Ventura schoolchildren will soon be asked to reveal to school officials the sort of information students generally tell only to each other.

But their answers will be anonymous.

To gauge the effectiveness of the Ventura Unified School District’s drug- and alcohol-education program, school officials will survey students about their experiences with substances ranging from cigarettes to heroin.

And because some schools also run support groups for children with personal problems, the surveys will attempt to evaluate students’ sense of self-worth by asking how they feel about themselves and their lives.

“We want to know, ‘Is our prevention program working?’ ” said Sandra Holmgren, the district’s health program specialist.

School officials will not see the completed surveys, Holmgren said. “They go directly into sealed envelopes in the classroom and are sent to the lab,” which will evaluate the answers.

Officials will give the 10-page questionnaires to students at both high schools, the local continuation school, three of the district’s four middle schools and 10 of the 17 elementary schools.

At the elementary schools, only fourth- and fifth-graders will receive the surveys, which take about 35 minutes to complete, Holmgren said.

The questionnaires for elementary schoolchildren differ from those for middle and high school students, asking less-detailed questions about prior drug use or attitudes toward drugs.

All students have the option not to take the survey, Holmgren said.

Developed by Southwest Regional Laboratories in Los Alamitos, the questionnaires will be given to students again this spring and twice in each of the next two years.