Las Virgenes Schools Plan Drug Survey

To comply with federal and state standards for drug and alcohol education and intervention funding and to gauge the extent of the problem in its schools, the Las Virgenes Unified School District will conduct a survey next semester on substance abuse among its students.

At its meeting Tuesday, the school board decided that the survey would be taken this spring of all seventh-, ninth- and 11th-grade students.

The survey is a standard test that California districts try to give every three years to determine the focus of substance abuse education in the coming years, said Robert Fraisse, assistant superintendent of education.

“We have to have some measure of information to use so we have the scope of the issue,” he said. “We have to find out where our kids are vulnerable and tailor our education efforts to that.”

Students from Lindero Canyon and A.E. Wright middle schools and Agoura, Calabasas and Indian Hills high schools will participate in the survey, expected to cost the district $4,700 to administer.

The results will be compared with others in the state to see where the district stands in the fight against youth drug use.

District officials said that when the test was given to students three years ago, substance abuse was down on campus and on school days, but there was little difference between the Las Virgenes district and others in the state on weekends and at student parties.

“Our kids neither use more nor less of the substances than others in the state,” he said. “We’d hoped we’d show a lower rate, so obviously that’s a negative for us. We hope to see the trend going the other way this time.”