The Bangor School Department wants to know what it should do to improve students’ mental health. But first it needs data on its students’ well-being.
That’s why an advisory group is recommending that Bangor students for the first time take a statewide student health survey in which the Bangor School Department has long declined to participate. An advisory group focused on students’ mental health made the recommendation Wednesday to the Bangor School Committee.
If the Bangor School Department takes up the group on its recommendation to participate in the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, it would mark an about-face for Maine’s fourth largest school district.
Bangor is one of about two dozen Maine school districts whose students traditionally haven’t participated in the anonymous, biannual survey that asks students about a wide variety of topics, including tobacco and drug use, drinking, sexual activity, exercise and diet, bullying and overall health. The survey also asks students questions such as whether they’ve ever contemplated suicide.
Bangor’s lack of participation has meant the school department hasn’t known the extent to which the behavior and health of the city’s students match those of students elsewhere in Maine.
When it comes to questions of students’ mental health, that lack of information has made it difficult for the school department and the mental health advisory group to know what students may be struggling with and how best to help them.
“We realized we don’t know what’s going on with our kids in terms of mental health,” said Dr. Clare Mundell, a school committee member and clinical psychologist who also serves on the advisory group.
Two years ago, the statewide survey showed Maine students’ use of e-cigarettes had doubled over the course of two years, yet there were no local data showing the extent to which Bangor students’ behavior aligned with the statewide numbers.
“If you look at the tobacco issue we’ve been dealing with, every college kid I work with is addicted to nicotine and started in high school,” Mundell said. “The [Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey] would give us that data.”
According to the 2019 survey results, roughly 28 percent of Penobscot County students reported drinking five or more alcoholic drinks in the last 30 days and nearly 41 percent of Penobscot County students reported having used electronic vaping products at some point, according to the 2019 survey results.
About 16 percent of students in Penobscot County had seriously considered attempting suicide in the last month, the 2019 survey results reported.
Bangor High School was the only high school in Greater Bangor whose students didn’t participate. Former Bangor Superintendent Betsy Webb said in 2019 that the school department relied on other sources of information to monitor students’ health and well-being.
While school committee members and department administrators are interested in offering the voluntary survey, school principals have questions about how it would be administered and how students could opt out of taking it, department spokesperson Ray Phinney said. The school department wants to answer those questions before deciding whether to participate, he said.
There are four versions of the survey that make it appropriate for students in kindergarten through high school, though Phinney said the Bangor School Department doesn’t yet know which grades would be given the survey, should Bangor choose to participate.
Despite the lingering questions, Bangor Superintendent James Tager said he sees the value in offering the survey because it would show the department what students are struggling with and how to offer help.
“I think it’s important to do it, and we want to get reliable data,” Tager said. “If it helps kids, I’m going to support it.”
Tager said he wants students to be able to opt out of the survey because he worries asking students personal questions may trigger some trauma, past or present. That concern, however, doesn’t change the department’s willingness to participate, he said.
There is no evidence that simply asking students about health risk behaviors will encourage them to try that behavior, according to the Maine departments of Education and Health and Human Services, which jointly administer the survey.
