sex & drugs part of these students education

[mopsie]

SEX, DRUGS PART OF THESE STUDENTS' EDUCATION
Survey By Shenendehowa Senior Of Her Classmates Reveals Seamy Side Of School; Results Upset Official

CLIFTON PARK -- Ninety-two percent of Shenendehowa seniors polled in a survey said they can acquire marijuana easily, and six in 10 seniors sampled in the suburban district reported having sex.

Meanwhile, 90 percent of the surveyed seniors at Shenendehowa claimed they have friends who smoke pot, and nearly three in four of them found pot socially acceptable.

Advertisement Those were the findings of senior Mariam Ballout, who wrote "Sexual Activity and Drug Use at Shen" for the district's student newspaper, The Shen Pen. It was also for her advanced statistics course.

Ballout, 17, based her reporting on 14 questions posed to 152 sophomores, juniors and seniors in random homerooms in Shenendehowa High School East. The queries surveyed students about their drug use and sexual activity.

Some of the answers startled and even disappointed school leaders, but the results made sense, she and a top school official said.

"The figures are worse than I would have hoped," school board President Gary DiLallo said. "I don't think I'm shocked, unfortunately."

He said his daughter and two sons were educated in the district, and they witnessed some of what the survey reports.

"The numbers are not something to be proud of, as far as I'm concerned," DiLallo said.

Some students and teachers said the response totals came in too low. Others said too high. Ballout, the former Op-Ed page editor of The Shen Pen, says she got a fair sample. Students Melanie Raydo and Liz Gray helped distribute the surveys, the results of which were published in the paper's May edition.

Ballout also discovered that of all those surveyed, 36 percent tried marijuana; 12 percent smoke it once a week or more; 16 percent have tried other drugs; 10 percent have experimented with a hallucinogen; 35 percent think they could get an hallucinogen easily; 4 percent have tried cocaine or ecstasy; and 53 percent -- including 62 percent of seniors -- view drug use as a problem at the district.

"Actually, it was pretty much what I expected," Ballout said. "I got a lot of reaction from students and teachers."

Nearly one in four sophomores polled have had sex, 31 percent of juniors and 60 percent of seniors, according to the survey. The latter number is close to the 61.6 percent of 12th-grade students nationwide who had intercourse in 2003, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ballout no longer writes for The Shen Pen, but she said her leaving had nothing to do with the story she wrote. She noted in the story that most of the results from the drug-related questions matched that of recent national studies of high school drug use.

"I think there's a lot of speculation ( about ) how much drug use and sex actually occurs at Shen. I tried to give people an actual representation of what the truth was," Ballout said.


source mapt

[Lunar Loops]

Not that surprising really, but I always find it astonishing that these sort of surveys, where children are polled, rarely take into account the fact that children may lie or exaggerate for a whole host of reasons.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good answer thanks

[IHrtHalucingens]

A survey just like this one was done at my highschool when i was in 10th grade. Our results were a good bit higher for both drug use and sexual activity. But shroomonger you are correct theres all sorts of reasons for teenagers to lie about drugs/sex. But who knows maybe the lies balance each other out, im sure there were people who had never had sex of done a drug that said they did, and im sure there were people who have had sex and done drugs that said they didnt. Depends on the group of friends and what they consider popular, thats what most highschool lies stem from.

[blackbastard]

can someone in the US please enlighten those in other places as to what ages terms like sophomore and junoir high refer to?
thanks

[bewilderment]

In the US, generally sophomores are around the age of 15-16 while juniors are about 16-17 years old.

[blackbastard]

ah ok thanks