More middle school kids are depressed

By Emily Richmond

Friday, Dec. 19, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

The number of middle school students who say they don't feel accepted at school and have felt depressed enough to stop doing regular activities is climbing, a new survey shows.

Of the 1,559 Clark County sixth, seventh and eighth graders who answered the biennial Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey last spring, 32.3 percent said they did not feel accepted at school, up from 29.4 percent in 2001. The number of students who said they felt sad or hopeless enough in the past year to stop doing regular activities also increased, to 30.2 percent from 28.5 percent in 2001.

Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction, said Thursday he was concerned by the increases. He was also disappointed that the number of students who said they had considered suicide was essentially unchanged -- 17.1 percent compared with 17.3 percent in 2001.

"I was hoping we would see more progress," Orci said. "Even one student having these kinds of thoughts is too many."

The district saw progress at the high school level, with the number of students reporting thoughts of suicide dropping to 20.3 percent from 22 percent in 2001. But the number of students who felt sad or hopeless increased, to 31.7 percent from 30 percent in 2001.

With Nevada having one of the highest teen suicide rates in the country, prevention and education is a top priority, said Gary Waters, president of the Nevada State Board of Education. Waters is pushing to add a new mental health and suicide screening program to the state's public schools.

The program Waters favors is also being considered by the Clark County School District as a pilot program -- Columbia TeenScreen, developed by Columbia University's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Given the size of the district's middle schools -- where enrollment can top 1,800 -- it's understandable that a student might feel overwhelmed, said Frederick Gillis, a psychologist who was in private practice in Southern Nevada for 25 years.

Adding to the challenge is that fewer students are getting the support they need at home, said Gillis, who is executive director of the Center for Independent Living, a Las Vegas treatment program for troubled youth.

"We're seeing more disenfranchised kids, more single family homes where the parent just doesn't have the time or inclination to be involved to the level their child needs," Gillis said. "You can't expect schools to pick up all of that slack."

The survey results will help the district to evaluate whether educational programs are having an impact or need revision. The data will also be used as part of an ongoing evaluation of which school configurations provide students with the best overall learning environment, Orci said.

Currently the district has been shifting from junior high school models to middle schools -- where teachers work in teams and students stay together in smaller groups. The newest high school prototype is also based on the philosophy that smaller is better, with grades divided up into "houses" that share common areas with the rest of the school.

"There isn't an educator out there that won't tell you that the smaller the school the better," Orci said. "The difficulty we have here is coming up with long-range solution to provide that kind of setting to all of our kids. One way would be to limit growth so that we don't have to build huge schools, but that isn't going to happen."

A school with kindergarten through eighth grade has been proposed for development in Henderson with mixed public reaction. Some parents worry about having first graders on the same campus as teenagers, while others say it provides continuity and eliminates the need for shuffling students from one campus to another.

"Kids are getting lost at a time in their lives when they are extremely vulnerable," said Edward Goldman, superintendent of the district's southeast region. "With the K-8 model the teachers know the kid, the administrators know the kid and the parents know the school."

While middle schools all have guidance counselors, students who do not seek out those services -- but need help -- could go unnoticed, Gillis said.

Smaller schools would give staff a better shot at reaching more students overall, Gillis said. It would also give students more opportunities to participate in extra-curricular activities such as athletics or band, Gillis said.

"There's an important sense of belonging that comes from those kinds of activities," Gillis said. "It's the average student, the one who doesn't stand out because of his social or athletic abilities, that we worry about the most."

Budget cuts have forced the district to trim middle school athletics down to a single sport -- basketball. And at both the middle and high school levels music programs have been forced to cut back participation in out-of-district concerts and special events.

The district is facing a bare-bones budget that hasn't allowed for expansion of most extracurricular programs over the last three years, Orci said.

The Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey, given every two years by the state education department in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quizzes students about behaviors and attitudes toward sex, drugs and personal safety. A sample of students is drawn from throughout the state to represent the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of Nevada. Parents must give permission for students to take part.

This is only the second time middle school students have participated in the survey. The high school version -- which includes a separate section on sexual activity -- has been given statewide since 1995.