The boy behind me whispered, “Put J for number 87!”

His friends laughed when they saw the question, which asked what happens after they take drugs.  Answer ‘J’ was ‘all of the above’ – which included unwanted sexual activity, more drugs, passing out, and getting sick.

The girl next to me showed her friend how she filled out bubbles on her form to make it look like a heart.

After listening to my classmates joke around about their answers on the Healthy Kids Survey, I wonder if any student takes this seriously.  The period after I filled out the survey, my friend joked, “Now they think I’m a gambling addict!”

The Healthy Kids Survey asks around 150 questions about topics such as drugs, alcohol, smoking, bullying, gambling, sexual activity, and students’ plans for the future.  I tried to answer honestly for the first portion of the survey, but it was so long that I eventually had to start filling in ‘A’ for every single question just to finish before the bell rang.

‘A’ was usually ‘No, I refrain from this’ or ‘I have done this 0 times.’  After all, I’d rather give our school good results rather than bad ones.

However, not everyone thought that through as they rushed. Whether people did zigzags in the bubbles, filled in smiley faces, or just drew something inappropriate, the majority of my freshman P.E. class did not take this survey seriously.

Students should have more time for the survey, less questions to answer, or the survey shouldn’t be given at all.  I understand that the school would like an honest opinion from their students, but they must know that some students are not filling it in truthfully if they are asked, ‘Did you answer all of these honestly?’ near the end of the survey.

Part of the problem is due to immaturity.  Students are all eighteen and under, and adults can’t expect many people to take an anonymous, ungraded survey seriously.  It’s not like PE teachers are patrolling the room, making sure we are actually thinking about every question.

The survey is becoming more pointless every year because students aren’t filling it in honestly.  It’s not the school’s fault; the fault lies with the students.  The school shouldn’t be basing anything on these surveys anymore.  Hardly any of the answers are true, so results have become meaningless information.