Schools

Survey Paints Concerning Portrait of High School Students' Development

Results of Project Cornerstone's Developmental Assets Survey, conducted in the fall of 2010, indicate that 47 percent of local high school students are 'vulnerable' or 'at-risk.'

Nearly half of Palo Alto's high school students were deemed 'vulnerable' or 'at-risk,' based on the results of a Project Cornerstone Developmental Assets Survey presented Tuesday night to the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Education.

Project Cornerstone (PC) representatives presented the survey to members of the board during the regular bi-weekly meeting. While most of the results were positive, there were a few areas of concern.

The Developmental Assets Survey, conducted in the fall of 2010, surveyed approximately 50,000 students from 26 school districts across Santa Clara County, including roughly 4,000 students from 12 schools in PAUSD.

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The survey aims to gauge local students’ attitudes and behaviors toward themselves, their relationships with adults in their lives, how they feel about school and their propensity toward both at-risk and positive behaviors. Ultimately, the goal of the survey is to measure how many “developmental assets” each student possesses.

PC has identified 40 developmental assets that help to indicate whether a student is thriving or is vulnerable or at-risk.

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“Developmental assets are, essentially, the emotional bank students need, which is really important in students’ early years,” explained Anne Ehresman, Project Cornerstone's executive director.

Based on the number of assets a student possesses, a student is placed in a category—31-40 assets is considered “thriving” or “optimal,” 21-30 is considered “adequate,” 11-20 is considered “vulnerable” and 1-10 is “at-risk.”

Questions on the survey ask students about their feelings and whether they engage in certain behaviors. Examples of “thriving behaviors” include helping others, succeeding in school, showing or participating in leadership, resisting danger, valuing diversity, delaying gratification and overcoming adversity. Examples of “at-risk behaviors” include substance abuse and other such dangerous activities.

Representatives from PC presented data on how the participating students scored on the survey. Students from grades five, seven and nine through 12 participated in the survey.

The data showed that a large percentage of the district's students fall into the “adequate” category, as far as the number of developmental assets they possess, out of the 40 identified assets. However, the data showed that 47 percent of Palo Alto high school students fall into the “vulnerable” and “at-risk” categories—which Ehresman suggested is cause for concern.

Ehresman said the elementary students that were surveyed showed signs of possessing positive attitudes; however, the low scores of the high school students suggest that attitude tends to sour as they get older and move up in grades.

On the higher end of the scale, out of the eight identified “thriving behaviors,” high-scoring students engage in six, on average. On the lower end, low-scoring students indicated they engage in seven or eight of the 24 identified “at-risk behaviors.”

As a whole, in comparison, Palo Alto scored well above the national average, but only slightly higher than the county-wide average.

As far as “school assets” were concerned—how the students indicated they felt about their school, their relationships with adults at their school and how they are treated at school—Palo Alto’s numbers were high, Ehresman said. However, she cautioned those in the room that this is only one piece of the pie.

“All parts of a child need to be developed,” said Ehresman, adding that developmental assets don’t just come from school and achievements but also from how much students feel supported by family and friends. As an example, one question on the survey asked whether the student "felt useful and important in his or her family."

Members of the audience spoke up as to how they felt about the numbers. One local parent, Ken Dauber, appeared very concerned about the number of low-scoring students.

“If I had hair, my hair would be on fire,” he expressed. “Forty-seven percent are ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at-risk?’ That is not a number to be celebrated.”

Though that number suggests Palo Alto is in line with, or only slightly below, the average, Dauber said, that is not good enough. He stressed that, average does not mean healthy—it may mean that you’re in line with everyone else, but if everyone else is in trouble, that’s not a good thing.

“I think this underlines the urgency that we need to have in this community,” Dauber added.

After presenting the data, the representatives from PC touched upon a few “next steps” that can be made in the schools and the community to improve upon students’ developmental assets.

First, the representatives said, parents and school staff members should use the data as a conversation starter—particularly the questions themselves, which they encouraged everyone to read thoroughly. Next, adults should continue to work on their communication and behavior, and strive to engage local youth at the family, school and community levels.

“Reframing actions and language are what is needed to get the numbers up, to get more students at 21 assets or more,” Ehresman said. “It’s really about getting adults to change their behavior.”

Ehresman presented an example from schools in the Los Gatos and Saratoga area that participated in the Developmental Assets Survey previously, and how they used their data to improve. Students in the Los Gatos-Saratoga area were surveyed in 2007, and after receiving their data and using it to implement programs to build developmental assets, they were surveyed again in 2010 and found that their students had increased their number of assets, on average, by three each.

Ehresman said, in particular, that Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos experienced much success. The principal decided to focus on fostering a successful transition from elementary to high school and completely rearranged the school’s entire plan around it, involving parents early on in the process. The school implemented a series of practices, procedures and opportunities to foster higher-level relationships between students and adults in their lives, particularly at school, in both face-to-face relationships as well as in each adult’s “cyber citizenship.”

“Over a short period of time, they saw a significant improvement,” said Ehresman.

The representatives said the PC website includes resources and ideas for tangible steps communities can take to close the gaps identified in the results. Ehresman and Greg Hermann, a management analyst for the city of Palo Alto who leads the Project Safety Net Task Force and the Developmental Assets Sub-Committee, said the committees and PC, together, are working with groups in the local communities to roll out programs aimed at building developmental assets. Ideally, work will begin during the spring and summer to help prepare students and adults ahead of time for the 2011-12 school year.

Board members responded positively to PC’s presentation.

“This shows it takes a village when it comes to raising our kids and giving them what they need to be successful,” said Board President Melissa Baten-Caswell.

Caswell praised the work of PC and thanked the representatives for presenting the data.

“We can look at these numbers as, ‘oh my God, my hair’s on fire, this is a problem,’ or we can look at this as an opportunity to implement things to help our community,” Caswell added. “This really helps us figure out our baseline, so we can figure out where to focus and how we can help our community.”

Hermann said that local groups meet regularly and are open to any member of the community who is interested in getting involved and helping out these causes. Project Safety Net meets monthly, with its next meeting on April 21. The Developmental Assets Sub-Committee typically meets every other Tuesday, with its next meeting on April 19. Both of these groups meet at the PAUSD offices at 25 Churchill Ave. For more information, contact Hermann at 650-329-2623.

To read the full Developmental Assets Survey Report, including questions, scores, and intepretations by experts, click here.

Visit Project Safety Net online at psnpaloalto.com. Visit Project Cornerstone at projectcornerstone.org.


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