More students at high schools and middle schools in Clark County feel safe on campus, but they may be putting themselves at risk in other ways — notably, by traveling in cars driven by someone who has been drinking.
The study, based on random surveys of more than 3,500 students in 52 middle and 86 high schools in 2007 in Nevada, also found that high schoolers were less sexually active in 2007 and that a greater percentage practiced safe sex by using condoms.
Smoking and drinking by students in Clark County have decreased since a 2005 study, said Karlene McCormick-Lee, associate superintendent of schools.
In Clark County high schools, 28.8 percent of those sampled said they sometimes or never feel safe at school, compared with 29.4 percent in 2005. Those in middle schools who didn’t feel safe all the time totaled 34.1 percent in last year’s survey, down from 36.9 percent in 2005.
One “disheartening” finding in Clark County showed that more middle school students rode with drivers who had been drinking, McCormick-Lee said. The survey found that 28.5 percent of middle school students said they had been a passenger in a car driven by somebody who had been drinking alcohol, compared with 19.9 percent two years earlier.
The survey also found that 44.1 percent of high school students in Clark County had sex in the previous year, down from 47 percent in 2005. Of them, 68.2 percent used a condom, up from 62.9 percent in the 2005 study.
Smoking declined among local high school students, dropping from 50.9 percent in the 2005 study to 44.6 percent. Marijuana use was at 36.2 percent, a slight decrease from 39.2 percent in 2007.
Some state legislators have questioned the findings in the study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, noted that only a small percentage of the state’s students were surveyed. And Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, wondered whether students’ answers reflected their true feelings and behavior.
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A new law that permits eighth graders to be promoted to high school even if they have failed some courses takes effect in the coming academic year.
Raggio, though, is having second thoughts on whether the measure, passed by the 2007 Legislature, will work.
In Clark County, an estimated 450 eighth graders may be eligible for “probationary promotion,” and there may be 75 students in Washoe County who could move up to high school without getting all passing grades, officials said.
The law, passed unanimously in the Senate and with little opposition in the Assembly, allows parents to decide whether a student should advance to high school and then take remedial courses to keep up with classmates.
Melinda Martini, an education program analyst for the Legislature, said school officials think the law’s major advantage is that it keeps students with their classmates. But educators say it allows students to slide by with no accountability for their middle school work, Martini said.
At a meeting of the Legislative Committee on Education Thursday, Raggio questioned whether students could take the remedial courses and still keep up with the high school curriculum. He suggested there was “little chance of success” for such students.
School officials recommend that students advancing to high school under the new law go to summer school. That, however, is not mandatory in most districts.
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