Bulloch County Schools will administer Georgia’s Student Health Survey to students in grades 3 through 12 beginning Monday, Jan 8, according to a release from the Bulloch County Schools System.
Parents may review the surveys' questions prior to it being administered. They are posted on the Bulloch County Schools Website’s homepage and at www.bullochschools.org/gastudenthealthsurvey.
Printed copies are available by request from your school’s office. Parents who wish to opt their child out of participation in the survey may complete a form and return it to their child's school by Friday, Jan. 5. The form is available on the referenced webpage.
Each school will set its own schedule for administering the surveys between Jan. 8 to March 1. All schools are required to survey at least 75 percent of their enrolled students.
There are two age-appropriate versions of the Georgia Student Health Survey: (1) third to fifth grades; and (2) sixth to twelfth grades. These are brief, 15-minute surveys, whose individual student responses are self-reported and anonymous. Online responses are submitted directly to the Georgia Department of Education for review, not the school district, according to the release.
“Please encourage your child to take the survey questions seriously and answer truthfully,” said Hayley Greene, director of Public Relations for the school district. “The results are used to guide each school's school climate initiatives, provide direction for health curriculum, and provide goals for drug and alcohol prevention education.
“School climate refers to the quality and character of life in a school. School climate sets the tone for all the learning and teaching done in the school environment, and it is predictive of a child’s ability to learn and develop in healthy ways.”
Survey results
Individual student responses are confidential. The state does not make the surveys’ raw data results public. The Georgia Department of Education does provide the public a Georgia Student Health Survey Dashboard with overall survey results by school and school district. It provides overall data about how students responded to survey questions about school safety, school climate, peer and adult social support, bullying, mental health, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation.
Also, the results are posted on the survey section of Bulloch County Schools' website at www.bullochschools.org/gastudenthealthsurvey.