STUDENT SURVEYS STYMIED

Teen Behavior: Parents Must Approve Before Questions Asked.

A state law that requires parents to sign permission forms before
schools can seek certain private information from students is getting
in the way of assessing teens' risky behavior.

The Alaska Department of Education did not bother publishing results
from the Alaska Youth Risk Behavior Survey, administered last spring,
because the state response to the survey was less than 60 percent.

That made it statistically too small to accurately generalize
behaviors to the state population, said Todd Brocious of the state
Department of Education.

"It's a really big deal not to achieve weighted data," he
said.

In Fairbanks, less than half the students targeted to take the risk
survey returned permission forms, said Nick Stayrook, information
services officer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.

The district failed despite hiring extra staff to call parents and
encourage them to fill out the forms.

The Anchorage School District had better success with what could be
called "peer pizza pressure." The district offered pizza parties to
classes that returned 100 percent of the forms, and students pressured
one another to return the paperwork.

"It didn't matter whether they were 'yes' or 'no,' we just needed the
form returned," said Michael Kerosky, the district's coordinator for
safe and drug-free schools.

Pizza parties for 57 classrooms cost $5,000 to $7,000, an expense
borne by the state interested in obtaining results from the state's
largest school district, Kerosky said.

Even with the pizza parties, the 62 percent response barely exceeded
the threshold.

The legislator who sponsored the 1999 law requiring signed permission
slips remains unapologetic about its effects.

"We don't want schools, or anyone else, intruding into the privacy of
homes without their parents' permission," said state Sen. Fred Dyson,
R-Eagle River.

It's simply not the government's right to know some things about
children without their parents agreeing, Dyson said.

"I hold the old-fashioned view that the responsibility of raising kids
lies with parents," Dyson said.

The youth risk self-assessment is given to students in every state. It
is written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
administered by a contractor every two years. Surveys take about an
hour to complete.

School officials take strong measures to avoid linking survey results
to the students who fill them out because of the extremely private
nature of the answers.

Students are asked to list how often they engage in a variety of risky
behaviors, such as using tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs, sexual
activity, use of weapons, and unhealthy eating.

The survey contractor tried to sample students at 42 schools in 22 of
Alaska districts.

Two schools refused to administer tests and one pulled out later. Two
more had zero participation. That added to the problem of schools not
being able to obtain signed consent forms.

Overall, the state had a 55 percent participation rate.

The Fairbanks school district, with 4,545 high school students as of
October, was designated for participation by 625-650 students,
Stayrook said.

Calling parents and asking them to sign forms had little
effect.

"It didn't seem to make a big difference in our response rate,"
Stayrook said.

The district received about 300 permission slips, dooming the results
to be statistically insignificant. On the day the test was
administered, some targeted students were absent. Only 294 surveys
were filled out.

Alaska is one of the few states in the nation that requires parental
permission, Stayrook said.

He said officials use results in two main ways.

School administrators want the information to determine whether
risk-prevention programs are making any difference.

"We use it as one of the indicators of whether the grant is having a
positive effect," Stayrook said.

He said the grants might be aimed at curbing youth violence or
reducing illegal drug use.

Social service agencies also use survey results to apply for grants
for other youth needs.

Dyson said the success of some districts in getting permission slips
proves it can be done.

"School districts manage to get permission for kids to go on field
trip," he said. "School districts can get this permission when kids
enroll in school. There's lots of ways they can do it."

Several officials said parents' privacy concerns are not the
obstacle.

"It's not a matter of parents refusing as much as it is the forms
themselves not making it back to the school," said Patty Owen, the
youth risk behavior study coordinator for the Division of Public Health.

Signing forms is not a high priority for busy parents, Kerosky
said.

"There are zillions of things coming home," Kerosky said. "It's just
one of the pieces of paper coming home that gets lost in the shuffle."

Owen said the survey tracks risk factors in adolescent health that
leads to adult health problems. Chronic diseases such as cancer,
obesity, diabetes and heart disease are linked to habits developed in
teen years such as smoking and overeating.

"Prevention is the key," she said.

The next survey will be given in spring 2007.