Kidsdata.org’s statewide expansion continues with new data for school districts statewide from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) specific to gang involvement, bullying, and school safety.

All three measures of youth safety play a crucial role in students’ overall health and well being. Safe school environments foster social and intellectual interactions required for a student’s  academic achievement. Being bullied can cause extreme anxiety, and is linked to depression and thoughts of suicide. Gang members are responsible for the majority of serious violent crimes  committed by youth, and they are more likely to be involved in selling drugs.

Insights from these newly posted data data:

• Race/national origin is the most common reason cited for bullying in schools. About 15 percent of female students and 20 percent of males in 2006-08 reported at least one incident of being bullied in the year prior to the survey for this reason.
• About 30% of California 7^th graders in 2006-2008 say that at least one time in the year prior to the survey, they were afraid they would be beaten up at school.
• According to these 2006-08 data, Caucasian students in California feel safest at school (64 percent said they feel safe or very safe), and African American students are least likely to say they feel safe (50 percent).
• In California in 2006-08, about 8% of 7th, 9th, and 11th grade boys said they had brought a gun to school at least once in the year prior to the survey, and 3% said they brought a gun to school four or more times.
• In California in 2006-08, about 11 percent of boys in grades 7, 9, and 11 considered themselves a member of a gang; roughly 6-8 percent of girls said the same.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion

As adults, we know that the health and success of a company depend, in part, on a positive working environment. When employees feel that their managers care, hold high expectations, and give meaning to their work, productivity increases.

This dynamic is similar in schools. Students want to feel valued, challenged, and encouraged to participate, and when they do, research has shown that these and other factors associated with school connectedness play a critical role in fostering resilience in kids. Resilience, in turn, has been associated with healthy development and the avoidance of risky behaviors.

But how do we measure a student’s connectedness to school? Over the past several years, the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) – developed and administered by WestEd and the California Department of Education – has established a number of measures of school connectedness, and these data – broken out by gender and race/ethnicity – now are available on kidsdata.org for school districts for across California.

Among the highlights, these data from 2006-08 show that:

• Less than half of 7^th, 9^th, and 11^th-grade students in California typically report high levels of connection to their school. This  summary measure includes student reports of being treated fairly, feeling close to people, feeling happy, feeling a part of, and feeling safe at, school.
• Students’ connectedness to school varies
  by race/ethnicity. Caucasian/White and Asian American students consistently are most likely to report high levels of connectedness, while African American/Black students are least likely to report such high levels.
• About one half of 7^th, 9^th, and 11^th grade students in California in 2006-08 reported high expectations from teachers and others at school. Across all racial/ethnic groups, students were more likely to say in 2006-08 that teachers had high expectations of them than in 2003-’05.
• About 15% of 7^th, 9^th, and 11^th-grade students in California report high levels of meaningful participation in school. This is a summary measure of student reports of whether at school they do interesting activities, help make decisions, and “do things that make a difference.” A higher percentage of students – roughly one-third – report low levels of meaningful participation in school.

These school connectedness data provide important insights on the emotional health of students, and now that they are on kidsdata.org, we hope they can help policy makers and school districts statewide craft ways to ensure that all students, regardless of gender and ethnicity, feel connected to their schools.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion

As noted in our recent youth suicide data release, boys are four to five times more likely to commit suicide than girls. One factor associated with youth suicide is depression – a measure of which was recently added to kidsdata.org,  as part of its continuing statewide expansion. These data, which measure depression-related feelings, not clinical depression, come from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a statewide survey of students that was developed and is administered by WestEd for the California Department of Education. The survey asked students whether they “had felt so sad and hopeless every day for two weeks or more that you stopped doing some usual activities.”

A few highlights:

• According to 2006-2008 data, about more than 1 in 4 California youth in grades 7, 9, and 11 expressed feelings of depression, with girls more likely than boys to report such feelings.
• Students with weak levels of school connectedness were nearly twice as likely as those with strong levels to report feelings of depression.
• Across all racial/ethnic groups, Pacific Islanders and Native American students were most likely to report feelings of depression while other Asian Americans and Caucasians were least likely.

One difference that’s worth noting when comparing depression and suicide data:  Although boys are four to five times more likely to commit suicide, boys’ reported feelings of depression are lower than girls across grades 7, 9, and 11.

What are the implications of this difference?  What is your organization doing to address this?

Posted by kidsdata.org

Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion