Ignoring teens’ trauma won’t make it go away, Florida
In the spring of 2021, nearly 11% of Florida high school students said they’d missed at least one day of school in the past month because they didn’t feel safe; 12.8% said they’d been bullied and 6.2% said they’d been injured or threatened with a weapon on campus.
For middle-aged Floridians whose highschool memories have mellowed into a grainy highlight reel, these numbers seem startling. But they are legit, part of Florida’s response to a national survey headed by the Centers for Disease Control. Thousands of American teenagers participate in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. And the results have changed the way schools and communities care for adolescents, the way state and federal governments allocate funding.
The news is never good. In the survey, students — whose responses are completely anonymous — talk about issues no child should have to face: Drugs, tobacco and alcohol. Lack of access to healthy food. Physical and sexual violence.
But what’s better? Knowing, or deliberately remaining ignorant?
Last month, state officials picked the wrong option: The next time the survey is administered in 2023, Florida won’t participate.
We can’t say this is the most shortsighted decision Florida officials have made in recent months, but only because there’s so much competition.
More than 11% of Florida students said they’d been victims of sexual violence, ranging from kisses to more intimate assault. Eight percent of students said they’d been physically forced to have sexual intercourse against their will.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP lawmakers haven’t given a good reason why they are dropping out. But the events of the spring legislative session might provide some context. Lawmakers pushed through bills aimed at turning Florida schools into culture-war battlefields, with minority and LGBTQ+ students coming under particular
attack. One bill (HB 1467) made it easier for parents and other community members to challenge books — knowing that books featuring sexual and racial minorities were among the most likely to be targeted. Another (HB 7) tightened restrictions on discussions of racism in public schools. The most controversial, HB 1577, banned classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity that wasn’t “age appropriate” — a vague term intended to make teachers afraid to allow any talk at all. What message does that send to the more than 16% of Florida’s high-school students who identify as non-heterosexual?
Some theorize that Florida’s newly puritanical leadership doesn’t want schools asking students — even anonymously —about how many times they’d
had sex or whether they’d used drugs. But is there an even more insidious motive? Mental health experts have warned that 2022’s “hate slate” of bills, particularly the legislation dubbed “don’t say gay,” could increase stigma, anger and shame for students who feel increasingly marginalized. It could also put some teachers in the position of outing their students — leading to self-destructive behaviors like substance abuse and suicide..
If the mental-health experts are right, the results of the 2023 survey could put a serious damper on GOP officials who want to brag about the legislation they’ve passed.
That’s just a theory, of course. And you don’t have to buy into any conspiracies to understand this: Ignoring real threats to the mental, emotional and physical health of Florida teens is a terrible idea.
Nearly 40% of students said they’d felt sad or hopeless nearly every day in the two weeks before they answered the questionnaire. More than 17% said they’d seriously considered killing themselves over the past year, and 13.8% said they’d made plans to end their lives. Nine percent actually attempted suicide..
There’s still plenty of time for Florida lawmakers and education leaders to reverse course. And they should. This is crucial data that often illuminates dangerous trends in teen behavior. The risk behavior survey provided the first evidence that e-cigarettes and vaping were rapidly gaining popularity among teenagers, for example.
If state leaders won’t budge, there’s another option. Six counties — Orange, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, MiamiDade and Palm Beach — get CDC funding to produce county-level data on behavior in middle schools. Leaders in those counties should talk to the CDC about continuing the high-school surveys as well, and if they’re successful, other counties should consider doing the same. It won’t be as good as getting data from all 67 counties, but it will be significant: The combined population of those six counties is around 8 million, significantly bigger than most states.
In Florida’s current atmosphere of hyper-partisan politics and brute retaliation, defying Tallahassee could bring grief onto those counties’ heads. But measure that against the importance of paying attention to high-school students as they struggle with burdens almost too heavy for their young shoulders to bear. These kids should count. And that means they should be counted.