CHKS: FAQ - Answers

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Frequently Asked Questions

Conducting The Survey

Why should valuable instruction time be used to administer this survey?

Because it is important. A detailed rationale is provided in the Guidebook appendices. For school boards and personnel, the strongest reasons are:

It meets federal No Child Left Behind Title IV regulations and provides data needed for the California state-identified district Title IV performance measures.
It is needed to obtain California state competitive health program funds, such as TUPE grants, in order to demonstrate how students are behaving.
Fostering safe, drug-free, healthy, and resilient students is essential to improving academic success and promoting positive youth development.
Assessing student problems is a critical part of the overall school assessment process.
Only by regularly assessing these behaviors can we understand how to address student needs and determine if prevention and health programs are working.
The HKS provides (in the Resilience & Youth Development Module) information on student attitudes towards school, which will help guide the overall school reform process.
The survey involves only one class period (approximately 50 minutes).

Why is the survey conducted in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11?

It is important that schools collect grade-level data (rather than use a general high-school sample) because drug use and other risk behaviors increase or change with age. Schools need to understand developmental differences in order to implement better programs that target each age group. Generally surveys target every other grade to help reduce the costs and disruptions involved and also provide convenient benchmarks. In California, where the HKS is mandated, it also assures that comparable data are collected by all HKS participants.

These grade levels were selected for several reasons:

Transition years. HKS targets major transition years in the developmental lives of adolescents which have been correlated with risk behavior. Grade 7 (approximately age 12) is often the beginning of secondary school and the last preteen year. Grade 9 (age 14) is typically the first year of senior high school and a time when prevalence of AOD use has increased to substantial levels.
Baseline data needs. Seventh grade is a natural baseline for comparisons with teenager populations. Levels of AOD use have consistently been low at this grade level. Grade 11 was selected because studies have revealed that virtually all students initiating AOD use in secondary school will have done so by the end of grade 11. By grade 12, many students who are at highest risk have dropped out.
Data comparability. Seven, nine, and eleven are the three grades used in the California Student Survey (CSS) and grades nine and eleven are used in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), thus enabling state and national comparison datasets to be developed.

5th grade is also used so that you have early information on risk and resilience factors, before the onset of the assessed risk behaviors generally occurs.

What will be the cost to my district?

The HKS is designed to reduce the difficulties, effort, and cost of conducting a health-risk survey. However, by necessity, some local-site functions must be conducted by district and school staff, particularly local survey planning, parent consent, and administration. In California, costs are largely covered by state funds. Because these funds are limited and need to be distributed equitably, each LEA also must be responsible for the per student cost for the questionnaires and processing answer forms, as well as any custom requests. At this time, there are no additional processing costs for the basic administration of the staff School Climate Survey for California LEAs doing the survey as part of their regular HKS administration. Contact your HKS Regional Center for a complete outline of related fees and services, or view the HKS Fee Schedule online.

Survey Requirements in California

What are the survey requirements in California?

Please visit the Survey Requirements page of our website.

How do I know if I've surveyed enough students to have representative data?

CDE requires that a survey must meet the following minimum standards to insure that the data are representative and valid. Districts that ultimately meet standards 1, 2, and 3, and EITHER standard 4 or 5 will be certified by CDE as having collected representative data.

per grade

This information will be available to CDE, which intends to use it in making grant-funding decisions. Those districts that proceed in good faith but nevertheless end up slightly short of meeting these standards will be considered borderline. Borderline is defined as falling short of the standard by no more than 10 percentage points. An example would be that a district only received between 50% and 60% usable answer forms for 7th grade students or that only 90% - 100% of the selected schools in the district participated in the survey.

Please note that these standards are minimum requirements set by CDE. Though you may meet all of CDE's standards, your data may not be representative enough to constitute a high-quality sample. For example, though standard five ensures a high consent rate, your actual response rate may still be low. Response rates of 70% or more are strongly recommended in order to obtain valid, representative data.

What are the requirements for my district if we intend to transfer our Title IV funding to another federal title activity under the federal Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) provisions?

If 100 percent of the Title IV SDFSC funding is transferred under the REAP provisions, or refused, and if the LEA also refuses all TUPE funding, then the CHKS is not required. However, if the LEA that has opted out of all TUPE and opted or "REAPed" out of SDFSC wishes to receive funding in a subsequent year to operate alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention programs, the CHKS is required as a condition of funding.

If the district refuses Title IV funding for the current fiscal year (FY), but carries over last year's funding into the current FY and/or accepts TUPE grade four through eight entitlement funding, does the CHKS requirement still apply?

Yes. Use of any amount of SDFSC and/or TUPE funding in the current FY and any subsequent FY, regardless of the original year of the funding, triggers the requirement for administration of the CHKS.

Parent Consent Issues

Under what conditions may passive consent be used?

For passive consent in California, refer to the Guidelines for Passive Consent (PDF) and the consent section of the CHKS Administration Guidebook.

If my district wants to use the passive consent option, can it be used in some grades and schools but not in others?

If you choose to use passive consent in any of your upper grades and schools, you must use passive consent for all of your upper grades and schools, with one exception: you can use a different form of consent with your continuation or other non-traditional students (NT) only. This means your district must adhere to one of the following four consent combinations:

When using active (written) consent, if a district or school is unable to obtain enough parental consent forms to constitute a valid sample according to CDE's guidelines, does it still have to administer the survey, or may it be credited with having made a good faith effort?

Due to the federal requirements, LEAs are required to administer the survey, regardless of the percentage of students for whom active consent forms are received. It should be pointed out that the federal Principles of Effectiveness also require participation of the public and parents in the assessment of strengths and needs, and evaluation of impacts on Performance Indicators. It is in the LEA's best interests to work hard to obtain sufficient consent forms to ensure that the results are representative of students in the district and meaningful to the public participation process.

Merely distributing consent forms is not sufficient demonstration of a good faith effort. LEAs should make valid attempts to maximize the return of consent forms, even where parents do not give their child permission to participate in the CHKS.

Staff School Climate Survey

What is the School Climate Survey?

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates that schools that receive Federal Safe and Drug Free Schools and Community (SDFSC) funds must conduct an anonymous teacher survey of the incidence, prevalence, and attitudes related to drug use and violence. To help school districts meet this requirement, as well as meet their own school-improvement data needs, CDE has developed an online, web-based School Climate Survey for staff as a companion to the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) for students. The mandate is active as of the 2004-2005 school year. For a brief overview, download our survey flyer (PDF). For administration instructions, download Part III of the CHKS Guidebook, School Climate Survey for Teachers and Other Staff.

What is the survey's purpose?

To meet the NCLB requirement, the survey gathers information from school staff that, in conjunction with CHKS student data, will enrich a school district's ability to understand and address the impact of substance use and violence on the students and the school. Second, to further enhance the survey's value to school improvement efforts, it includes general school-climate questions relevant to school connectedness, learning supports, and health-related learning barriers. Districts may also add questions of their own choosing as a custom feature. A supplementary module for assessing school reform and improvement efforts is under development.

What data does the survey collect?

The main focus of the survey is to assess school staff perceptions of the following:

Student risk/problem behaviors--such as substance use, violence, and truancy--and how great a problem they pose for the school and the sufficiency of efforts to reduce them;
Availability of health and counseling services;
Staff and student safety;
Nature, communication, and enforcement of school rules/policies;
Academic standards and priorities, learning supports, and barriers;
Staff-student relationships, school connectedness, and staff supportive relationships; and
Parent involvement.

When does the survey have to be administered?

LEAs must administer the survey once every two years, in the same semester the district conducts the CHKS student survey. The staff and student surveys don't have to be conducted on the same days, but they should be coordinated in close proximity (e.g., within the same few weeks) for efficiency and data comparability.

Who should take the survey?

Although the student CHKS is not conducted in all grades, the staff survey must be conducted:

in all the schools in the CHKS sample
to all certificated staff working with grades 5 through 12
to all personnel working in the areas of health, prevention, and safety
and to any other staff you wish to survey.

This is necessary to obtain a large enough sample to have confidence that the results are truly representative of staff perceptions (i.e., valid) and to maintain anonymity. To further increase the quality and usefulness of the data, districts are actively encouraged to survey additional staff, including ALL teachers, regardless of grade. Staff participation is, however, voluntary. Staff who do not wish to participate must not be required to do so.

How do I survey staff that work at multiple sites?

Staff working at multiple sites should be counted in the target sample at all sites. Then it is up to the individual staff person to decide for which sites they will fill out surveys. They should not fill out a survey if they don't think they work at that site enough to answer the questions.

How is the survey administered?

To keep costs and local effort to a minimum, staff will take the survey online (via the Internet) during a district-determined 30-day survey window. District CHKS coordinators will be given a master letter for each participating school that includes the school name, a school-specific login and password, and instructions on how to fill out the survey online. The district coordinator then distributes copies of the letters to each staff member (e.g., putting them in staff mailboxes, distributing at staff meetings), who follow the instructions and fill out the survey online, from any computer. The survey must be completed in one session, at the end of which, results are submitted electronically to WestEd. Printed versions of the survey are also available, but additional fees apply.

How is the survey to be coordinated?

The district CHKS coordinator will sign up for the staff survey the same time they sign up for the student survey. He/she will receive the staff survey materials in the mail along with the student survey materials, or separately via email. Coordinators are responsible for planning both surveys at all participating schools, distributing the materials, and monitoring staff survey completion. To sign up for the staff survey, contact your HKS Regional Center with:

school names,
the total number of staff you are targeting at each school, and
the date you would like your 30-day survey window to open.

How is participation monitored?

Along with the instruction letters for schools, District Coordinators will be given a special web address, login and password for viewing response rates and reports. Just visit the web address provided to you on the form, and enter the login and password. Coordinators may also ask each staff person to print out the last page of the online survey, where he/she logs out of the system, and return it to a site-level coordinator as proof of participation. This page does not contain any answers.

How are the results reported?

Results/reports are accessible via the same website, login, and password used to view your response rates. Just visit the web address provided to you on the form, enter the login and password, and click the link to the report you wish to view. You will not receive a paper copy of your reports in the mail.

Your reports will be displayed three different ways:

CHKS Guidebook

Who will have access to the SCS data?

The results are for the use of the district to guide SDFSC program decision-making and school-improvement efforts. Districts are not being assessed based on these results. No Child Left Behind does require that the district make the results publicly available. However, CDE/CHKS will preserve the confidentiality of the results.

How do I share my SCS results with others?

Because you will not be receiving a printed copy of your SCS reports, you may need to adapt your data-sharing methods. Try:

printing your reports from the web and making paper copies available to others.
creating electronic versions of your reports by either printing to PDF or saving as a PDF file. This option is available on most MAC computers, and is possible for PC computers that have the full version of Adobe. If you don't have either, try scanning a printed version of your report; most copy stores can do this for a small fee.
distributing the web address, login, and password that you use to access the reports to other interested parties. Please note that these parties will gain access to all report types, including individual school reports. If you are not comfortable sharing these, then printed and electronic copies are better options.

What are the costs of the SCS?

When administered as part of your regular CHKS administration, there will be no costs for the basic administration of the School Climate Survey, other than the copying fees your district will incur. As with the student survey, additional fees apply to custom work (e.g., adding custom questions, off-cycle administration).

Confidentiality

Who will have access to our survey results and how will they be kept confidential?

With the exception of the state-identified Performance Indicators (reported in your online Annual Report) and your CHKS Key Findings reports (displayed on our website on October 1st of the subsequent school year), your results are confidential and will be reported only to you. All external requests for data to the HKS Regional Centers will be referred back to the designated district, county, or organizational contact person. A County Office of Education (COE) must notify districts of requests for county-level data. COEs will not be granted access to district- and school-level data unless permission is obtained from each individual district.

In good faith, HKS staff are required to notify interested parties that some data is available through the Annual Report website and HKS website. Results of the survey are also subject to the California Public Records Act and may be available to the public (if requested).

The aggregated state-level results will be available to public and research agencies for analyses under strict conditions of confidentiality. No school identification information will be included in a dataset unless a Memorandum of Understanding is signed with CDE that the results of any analyses will not be released in any way that will enable a school to be identified without district approval.

How is confidentiality maintained in small LEAs?

Some LEAs and schools are small, and public examination of the results of the survey might enable someone to deduce the identity of a respondent or group of respondents to the survey. For these LEAs, CDE advises working with your COE TUPE/SDFSC Coordinator to administer the survey with a consortium of small LEAs. Working with WestEd, the results of the CHKS can be reported out on a consortium-wide or countywide basis if the LEA and/or WestEd believe that reporting at the LEA level could breach confidentiality. While reporting CHKS results aggregated at a higher level may be less meaningful for the district and the public, it may be necessary in order to maintain the confidentiality of the respondents.

Are the rights of students and parents protected?

Yes. Special attention has been paid to ensuring the confidentiality and privacy of the data and that all student and parent rights are met.

The survey is in full compliance with all state (California) and federal regulations.
Active consent of a parent or guardian is required for grades below seven; passive or active consent is required for grade seven and above.
Participation is totally voluntary. No student in the selected classroom is required to take the survey. Even if parents consent, the student can refuse, nor does he or she have to answer every question once the survey has begun.
In California, the Protection of Pupil Rights Act (PPRA) now requires LEAs to establish procedures for notification of parents of their right to inspect the HKS and procedures for granting access to the HKS within a reasonable time after the request is received.

Data Use

Will the results be reliable?

Yes. Research indicates that sensitive data may be gathered as reliably from adolescents as from adults. The survey includes questions and checks to determine how truthful each respondent has been. However, to obtain truthful answers, the survey-giver must strongly communicate to students that the survey is very important and that their responses are anonymous and confidential.

What comparability is there between the HKS and other surveys?

HKS results are comparable to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), California Student Survey (CSS), and many other health-risk surveys. LEAs that have been conducting the YRBS or CSS can use the HKS without losing their trend data and compare the results to similar LEAs in their area. If you have been conducting either the CSS or YRBS in the past, you can easily make the transition to the HKS and still preserve your trend data. The great majority of the items in these two surveys are preserved across the HKS modules. HKS staff will work with you to address any differences between your previous sampling plan and HKS requirements. View the Comparison Data section of our website for more information.

What do I do if I have pre-existing trend data from another survey?

The HKS system includes the option of adding custom questions to your survey so trend data can be preserved. You can create a module of your own design of up to 60 items with as many as 13 response options. This option is especially useful for LEAs that want to add items specific to their programs as part of an evaluation effort, or that wish to integrate the HKS with other ongoing data collection efforts. Please contact your HKS Regional Center regarding custom modules.

Effects of Survey Participation

Will the survey generate controversy?

Some people may find some of the questions sensitive or controversial, but the Guidebook is designed to address these concerns.

Will the survey cause youth to try drugs or other health-risk behaviors?

No. A small percentage of students are "risk-takers" and they may be attracted to any new risk-behavior. However, asking questions about high-risk health behaviors does not encourage students to engage in those behaviors. Participation in the survey should be part of lessons on the dangers of these behaviors.

Survey Options

Should I collect school-level data?

The focus of the HKS in California is on representative district-level data. There are many positive reasons why a LEA may want data from individual schools; especially if the schools differ markedly in demographics, other characteristics, or programs. Sometimes schools have concerns about being compared. The assumption is often made that the news will reflect poorly on the school, and that some schools will suffer from this exposure. If schools have concerns about this, the major benefits to stress are:

The survey results will reflect the combined influence of media, parents, community organizations, and peers, as well as schools, on student behaviors.
The HKS requests information to understand the impact of strategies and programs, not to identify specific schools with problems. The survey results will provide guidance for improving health programs and services to help staff strengthen programs.
Results often highlight successes. The survey is called "Healthy Kids" precisely to highlight a positive message, rather than a focus on problem or bad behavior.
What differences are found are important to guide a more effective allocation of resources and program development that targets the specific needs of each school.

Can this survey be used as an evaluation tool for a specific program?

The HKS is not a complete evaluation tool in itself, but it can be a valuable component of an overall evaluation strategy. This will likely require a modification of the sampling plan and the addition of program-specific questions in a custom module. LEAs should consult an evaluator to determine program needs and how the HKS can assist in meeting them. HKS staff will then help develop the sampling plan. Cost-recovery fees are charged if staff need to develop a custom module. If you need further evaluation assistance, the HKS staff can also provide it as a separate, custom service.