| Teacher Supplies home >
Teacher Supplies News Center > Sex in high school
Sex in high school
Click
here to see our selection of Teacher Supplies.
 By
Patrick Cronin
pcronin@seacoastonline.com
HAMPTON - "They are shocking, but real. Statistics don’t
lie."
Those were the comments of Winnacunnet High School student Daryl
Velez after school officials presented the findings of the 2005
Youth Risk Behavior Survey to the Winnacunnet Cooperative School
Board on Wednesday night.
The survey revealed 71 percent of students have tried alcohol while
42.6 percent of students have smoked marijuana.
It also showed more students are sexually active compared to results
from the 2001 survey and 36.9 percent had sex with more than one
person in the last three months.
Talley Westerburg, a school social worker at WHS, explained the
survey was created in 1989 by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention to monitor the risk behavior of the students.
Roughly 800 students from all four grades took the survey, which
looks at violence, tobacco use, alcohol, drug use, sexual behaviors
and physical activity.
Westerburg compared this year’s results with the 2001 survey
of Winnacunnet students as well as how the WHS 2005 results compared
with state results.
As compared to the 2001 WHS results, the good news is that students
reported lower regular cigarette smoking, lower lifetime and regular
use of alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamines and fewer suicide attempts.
But the numbers are still not what they would like to see, Westerburg
said.
WHS students who drank alcohol in the last month dropped from 49
percent to 45 percent, while those who smoked marijuana dropped
from 28 percent to 23.2 percent.
Roughly 10 percent of WHS students have tried cocaine, while 2.7
percent have used heroin.
One of the more shocking results was 28 percent of students were
offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property by someone
in the past 12 months.
Westerburg said while more students are sexually active, condom
use is up compared with the 2001 results.
Westerburg said 46.5 students stated they have had sexual intercourse,
which is a 7.1 percent increase over the 2001 results.
But the use of birth control is not as high as the state average.
Another statistic Westerburg noted was that 9.4 percent of students
reported that they were hit by their boyfriend or girlfriend, and
8.5 percent said they were physically forced to have sexual intercourse
when they did not want to.
Although not statistically significant, WHS students reported higher
scores on all suicide-related survey questions as compared to the
New Hampshire state average, Westerburg said.
Roughly 29 percent of the students "felt so sad or hopeless
for almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped
doing some of their usual activities," while 8.4 percent "actually
attempted suicide one or more times during the last 12 months."
Chris Singleton, chairman of the Winnacunnet School Board, said
the results of the survey were an eye opener.
"These issues are with us," Singleton said. "But
these problems are not unique to Winnacunnet. It’s happening
in Exeter, Portsmouth and every other high school in the United
States."
The School Board plans to share the results with WHS faculty, the
student council and parents as well as other schools in SAU 21.
Board members also plan to seek out community involvement and input
on how to address the problems noted.
"We can’t solve this alone," Singleton said. "We
need selectmen, police and everyone in the community to work as
a team."
"Now that we know about it, we can do something about,"
said Maria Brown, a member of the Winnacunnet School Board.
The survey was not all negative, Westerburg noted.
The good news is that WHS students are active and enthusiastic
participants in their community, that they value grades and education,
parental involvement, exercise and health and they feel safe in
their school.
The survey showed 87.4 percent of the students report that they
receive grades of mostly A’s, B’s and C’s.
And 61.2 percent of the students "think they definitely will
complete a post high school program such as vocational training
program, military service or college.
Singleton said the board will discuss the survey and what can be
done to address the results at its next meeting.
Some suggestions brought up during the meeting include expanding
the DARE program, establishing a healthy kids task force and expanding
its involvement with Seacoast Safety Net, a drug and alcohol prevention
coalition.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/hampton/03242006/news/94299.htm
This weeks top selling teaching supplies
Click here to see more classroom
supplies & decorations
Discuss teaching ideas, lesson plans, classroom
strategies
and more on our teacher
forum!
|
