By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — In a time of heightened concern about online privacy, safety and parental rights, some school board members have expressed reluctance about conducting a survey of youth substance use that has been administered to Westport public school students periodically over more than two decades.

“I am not totally comfortable with the questions you are asking younger kids to answer,” Board of Education Vice Chair Dorie Hordon said at last week’s meeting.“I think it’s kind of a boundary crosser. I don’t support some of these questions.”

Board Chair Lee Goldstein also had concerns, not necessarily with the questions but with its online administration.

“I appreciate the public health aspect of that. I really do,” said Goldstein. But she is uncomfortable asking students “invasive, private questions” about potentially illegal behavior via an online platform.

It becomes no different to a student than answering a TikTok survey, Goldstein said. “I think it’s irresponsible and dangerous to teach children to do that.

“As helpful as it is, it is hard for me to support that,” she added.

The survey is part of a community partnership between the school district and town’s Department of Human Services.

Information culled from the anonymous, grant-funded survey of middle and high school students helps inform prevention and intervention services as well as the school district’s health curriculum, said Elaine Daignault, the town’s human services director.

Because of previous surveys, Staples High School now has a part-time drug and alcohol counselor and access to a Kids in Crisis counselor, Daignault added.

The last survey was done in 2021. Margaret Watt, director of Positive Directions, a part of the Westport Prevention Coalition, said it’s time to re-measure and see what the town’s new normal is so that services align with needs.

The last time the survey was administered it found alcohol use among Westport youth was much higher than in surrounding communities.

Weston, Norwalk, Trumbull, Fairfield, Darien and Greenwich are some of the school districts that administer the survey, the board was told.

This time around, the plan is to limit the survey to substance issues since other surveys students take capture social and mental health issues.

The board was told that a sample of 150 students in each grade, seven through 12, would take the 10-minute survey. That amounts to 30 percent of students in those grades.

Participants can skip questions with which they are uncomfortable, and parents can opt out or ask that their child take a written version of the survey.

The survey asks about access to and use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, prescription drugs not prescribed to them, vaping and various illegal drugs.

 Also, they are asked about their perceptions of how dangerous the substances are; how often they use them if they do; where they get them; where they use them, and about peer and parental disapproval of such substances.

 National surveys show substance abuse has been dropping for years among teens, said Watt, with the exception of marijuana, which Connecticut has legalized for adult use.

Valerie Babich, director of psychological services for the district, said Search Institute, a nationally known non-profit was selected to administer the survey on a platform she said is confidential.

The hope is to administer the survey in February, with results available by spring.

 Assistant Supt. of Schools Michael Rizzo said the plan is to get the board’s approval of the survey at its next meeting.

Hordon said what stood out to her is the detail in some of the questions to be asked. She wondered how many seventh and eighth graders know about ecstasy, molly or hashish.

“This might be teaching kids what some of these things are,” Hordon said.

Watt said adults should not assume students don’t know or have access to harmful substances. She pointed out that a 13-year-old in Hartford died of a fentanyl overdose at school in 2022.

The board was told students can indicate on the survey if they are unfamiliar with any of the substances. Or skip such questions.

Babich said the questions have been asked for decades and yield good data.

“I get that,” Hordon said. “Just because something has been going on for decades doesn’t mean it’s the correct thing.”

She also questioned the traceability of responses when students are asked if they drink and drive, sell drugs or steal something.

“These are heavy questions,” Hordon said. “I wouldn’t want to answer some of them.”

Better, Hordon added, is for students to have a trusted adult they can go to for help with substance issues.

Goldstein asked if Westport’s data are consistent with other towns giving the survey why officials can’t use results from those communities to inform local programming.

Given that responses in 2021 indicated Westport students’ drinking was higher than in other communities, Watt said she would like to see where it is now.

Jill Dillon, the board’s newest member, said she did not have an issue with the survey or its online format.

“I personally love data,” said Dillon. “I think if you want to make programming to help kids, data is the best way to do it.”

Before she became a parent, Dillon said she worked with data and is convinced the survey can be conducted in a way to protect privacy.

Board Secretary Neil Phillips asked how some of the questions are worded, suggesting some may be leading. Others — like asking how many times a student may have consumed four or more alcoholic drinks in two hours — might suggest that anything less is okay, Phillips said.

“One drink may be enough to cause a reaction you don’t want,” he said.

Rizzo said an education piece explaining online safety could be offered to students before the survey is given. That might help them understand when it is okay to answer such questions, he said.

“That would change it for me,” said Goldstein, adding she still would not allow her child to answer questions about illegal behavior online.

Although a paper-and-pencil option is offered, Rizzo said it would be problematic if all students took the survey that way.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Lauren Costello, a parent who said she is the parent of a junior at Staples High and a sixth grader at Coleytown Middle, said she would be opting out, at least for her middle schooler.

“I don’t know half things on this list either,” she said. “I don’t want my young kid to be exposed to this in his school at all  … The inappropriateness of asking what all this stuff is … I am very shaken by it.”

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.