‘Inflammatory and sexualized:’ Florida pushes school districts to drop CDC youth risk survey

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County Public Faculties will not take part in an annual nationwide examine charting dangerous behaviors in college students, citing correspondence from the Florida Division of Training that urged the change and criticized the survey.

On the district’s board assembly Tuesday, members mentioned a letter reportedly despatched from FDOE to OCPS urging the district to not take part within the examine.

Information 6 is working to acquire a duplicate of the letter on the time of this writing.

The Youth Threat Conduct Surveillance System, a part of a Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention grant which OCPS has participated in since 2001, incorporates a questionnaire — administered with parental permission procedures — that asks about six forms of behaviors that the CDC states “contribute to the main causes of dying and incapacity amongst youth and adults,” listed under:

• Behaviors that contribute to unintentional accidents and violence

• Sexual behaviors associated to unintended being pregnant and sexually transmitted ailments, together with HIV an infection

• Alcohol and different drug use

• Tobacco use

• Unhealthy dietary behaviors

• Insufficient bodily exercise

Along with these classes, the survey additionally seeks to measure “the prevalence of weight problems and bronchial asthma and different health-related behaviors plus sexual id and intercourse of sexual contact,” based on the CDC.

[TRENDING: Become a News 6 Insider]

Outcomes from the 2021 survey — a 92-item questionnaire accomplished by 1,441 respondents — present the most recent snapshot of those health-related developments as reported by OCPS highschool college students, together with any upward or downward mobility:

• 21.9% of respondents severely thought of trying suicide (up 2.9% from 2019)

• 17.1% made a plan to commit suicide (up 1.3% from 2019)

• 45.2% had not been taught about AIDS or HIV an infection in class (up 10.3% from 2019)

• 4% recognized as transgender (new statistic)

• 73.8% had not eaten breakfast for not less than seven days in a row (up 3.7% from 2019)

• 31.7% had tried e-cigarette merchandise (down 12% from 2019)

• 12.8% had taken prescription ache medicine with out a physician’s prescription (down 1.3% from 2019)

• 26.9% described themselves as barely or very obese (down 2.4% from 2019)

• 12.5% reported eight or extra hours of sleep per night time (up 1% from 2019)

• 15.2% missed college as a result of they felt unsafe on college property (down 2.1% from 2019)

See extra from the 2021 survey outcomes by clicking right here.

In Duval County, Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene obtained a letter from Training Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. final week with the identical meant impact, imploring the district to finish its participation within the survey with claims its questions are “inflammatory and sexualized” and offered in methods “that will really introduce dangerous behaviors to college students.”

The district was additionally notified that the Florida Division of Well being was terminating a contract with Duval County Public Faculties for offering information assortment and analysis for the survey; as such, the 2023 survey will not be carried out there, based on Information 6 accomplice News4JAX.

In Could 2022, then-interim schooling commissioner Jacob Oliva prompt Florida would develop its personal survey because it sought even then to desert the CDC’s questionnaire, stating the info was nonetheless helpful in serving to colleges and society handle at-risk youngsters and/or these in want, based on the Tampa Bay Occasions.

Now we have reached out to OCPS and FDOE for remark. This story can be up to date with that data if it involves us.

Get as we speak’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Day by day: