DISTRICT 62 WILL ASK STUDENTS TO FILL OUT DRUG, ALCOHOL SURVEY

Des Plaines elementary school officials will survey eighth-grade students on
their attitudes towards drug and alcohol use.

Within the next four weeks, Des Plaines Elementary District 62 officials
will administer a 99 multiple-choice question survey to 459 eighth-grade
students.

The survey was developed by the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research at
Colorado State University.

District 62 officials said they agreed to conduct the survey because Maine
Township High School District 207 would be able survey its students for free
if the feeder school systems agreed.

"It helps us when we write grants to talk about the needs of the district,"
Associate Superintendent Robert C. Marckese told the District 62 school
board.

The survey will question students about prior drug and alcohol use and
substances they may have abused. Students won't have to identify themselves
on the survey.

However, some board members objected to the survey.

"I don't want these kids taking this survey. It promotes some controversial
topics and there's no discussion of it," board member Kevin Shyne said.

Board member Jean Warren said she objected to a question asking about the
students' ethnicity.

Board member Nancy Fornoff, though, said it's important for the district to
have such information.

"Our kids are very savvy. Some of the things they know can curl your hair. I
see no problem," she said.

Marckese said the survey would provide results for the entire district and
not individual schools.

District officials also said the survey questions won't invade students'
privacy.

The district used the same survey for a biannual query of its fourth-,
sixth- and eighth-grade students from the late 1980s until the 1995-96
school year, Marckese said.

The survey was discontinued after 1996 because the district lost its grant
to fund it, Marckese said.

Other Maine Township feeder districts have agreed to conduct the survey,
Marckese said.

District 207 has also conducted a biannual drug and alcohol survey of its
students.