District staff presented findings from the spring 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) for Manchester-Essex middle- and high-school students at the Oct. 7 meeting.

Highlights included: most high-school students reported seven or more hours of sleep per night (about three-quarters), and more than 80 percent of middle-school respondents reported seven or more hours; nearly half of high-school respondents and about 30 percent of middle-school respondents said they access social media multiple times per day. Substance-use responses showed that 24.4 percent of high-school respondents reported having tried marijuana at least once; e-cigarette and cigarette experimentation rates were lower than some past surveys. In the YRBS mental-health items, about 85 percent of high-school respondents and roughly 89 percent of middle-school respondents said their mental health was never, rarely or sometimes “not good” in the prior 30 days; staff said they will focus on the smaller but important group who reported frequent poor mental health.

Presenters cautioned the board about limits: the survey is anonymous, captures point-in-time responses, and response rates vary by grade and block (the high-school survey was administered during U-block and some students were absent or opted out). Staff said the results will inform counselor outreach, professional development and targeted supports; they also noted that the district will compare local trends with state and national data as updated figures become available.

The committee and staff discussed next steps, including whether and how to share results with students and families, timing for follow-up programming and the need to triangulate survey findings with other data sources (attendance, incident reports, referral data) before designing interventions.