Carolyn Patton, the special services director for Benicia Unified School District, provided an overview of the results of the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) as well as the Relationships, Effort, Aspirations, Cognitions, Heart (REACH) survey— which were both administered to district students— at Thursday’s school board meeting.

CHKS is a statewide survey given to all seventh, ninth and 11th-graders as well as all Liberty High School students every two years which captures behavioral data in the areas of substance abuse, school safety, social/emotional wellness and student/teacher relations. The REACH survey was issued for the first time last year to all BUSD students in grades 6 through 12 and further examines the relationships between students and teachers and identifies internal assets known to increase achievement. The surveys are aligned to LCAP goals of preparing students for college and careers and increasing parental awareness of what happens at school, and a superintendent goal of promoting safe and welcoming schools.

Both surveys yielded mixed results and signaled areas for improvement. For instance, the CHKS indicated that while the overall use of marijuana within the last 30 days of taking the survey had decreased, fewer students in all areas still thought the drug was harmful. This number included about 60 percent of 11th-graders and slightly less than 50 percent of all Liberty students.

Trustee Stacy Holguin said the data reflects the current attitudes toward marijuana use.

“It’s not surprising with the current politics of the use of marijuana, but it does beg the question ‘How do we educate them about the substance?’” she said. “We will have to either way the votes go. We will have to put together an education plan that mirrors what we did 20 years ago with cigarettes in order to develop an understanding of the impact of long-term marijuana use.”

Meanwhile, the percentage of binge drinking was up in all areas from 2013-14 except among 7th-graders. Additionally, 50 percent of Liberty students admitted to being drunk on campus. Patton noted that there was a slight decrease in the same category among Benicia High students, partially due to the closed campus policy, but the statistic was still between 15 and 20 percent, in part due to students returning to campus for games or events.

Trustee Andre Stewart asked if non-prescribed pharmaceutical pills were included in the data. Patton said the information was present in the data but not in the summary as it did not prove to be a big area of concern.

“I’m concerned about pharmaceuticals more than the other two because I can’t smell pills,” Stewart said. “I can smell if you’ve smoked marijuana or if you’ve done alcohol, I can’t smell a pill.”

Patton noted that both high schools provided voluntary and free substance abuse counseling.

In terms of school safety, fewer juniors reported feeling safe at school than they did two years ago. Patton believed that this could have been due to them taking the survey shortly after Benicia High School student Nolan Buchanan was arrested on campus and accused of murdering his family. She noted that the hiring of an additional counselor at both the middle school and high school could help with conflict resolution.

The survey indicated that less students in all areas had seriously considered suicide in the past year, but Patton believes more work needs to be done, which could be helped with the implementation of the Sources of Strength program as well as an upcoming presentation at the high school on Sept. 15.

“Until that number gets to 0, we’re not satisfied,” Patton said.

Finally, the student-teacher relationship remained stable, with 70 percent of juniors able to identify at least one caring adult at the school.

The REACH survey expanded a bit on the student/faculty relationships by exploring five categories:

*Relationships: Do teachers believe in their students?

*Effort: How students view their own intelligence influences the effort they put into their school work.

*Aspirations: Do students have positive visions of their futures and set and work toward their goals?

*Cognition: How well do students manage and think about their own thinking?

*Heart: Do teachers provide students with the spark that would allow them to exert effort in and out of school?

Patton said that the areas in which students rated themselves were the strongest, and the areas in which students rated the relationships with their teachers were the lowest. Most troublingly, 60 percent of students said none of their teachers connected learning to fun activities (sparks) in life and 29 percent said teachers did not try to find what they were interested in.

“This is a specific activity behavior that we can help our teachers connect in the classroom,” Patton said. “It doesn’t mean they’re gonna take away from their learning or core curriculum, but how can they adjust their teaching so that the students can feel that connection in the classroom?”

Patton suggested using such resources as webinars to help teachers grow in this area.

Trustees praised the goal of increasing connectivity in the classrooms.

“One of the big things about Common Core is that it connects to real world,” Trustee Diane Ferucci said. “This is taking it even deeper and more personal to reach these students. It’s not just ‘What am I learning and what role is it gonna play in my life?’ Now it’s ‘What’s my interest and how is it gonna affect my interest?’ That’s taking it deeper, deeper, deeper to what they’re doing every day.”

In other business, Leslie Beatson, the assistant superintendent of educational services, and Jan Rogenski, the coordinator of educational services, presented the results of the CAASPP test, in which BUSD had a 5 percent decrease in overall scores from the previous year but still scored the highest in the county and even outperformed the state.