Out of the 32 school districts in Humboldt county, 13 (41%) completed the 2020-2021 California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) Core Module. The Core Module consists of key questions that are considered most important for schools to guide improvement of academic, health, and prevention programs and promote student achievement, college and career readiness, positive development, and well-being. The majority of the questions are school-specific, including the following indicators:
students’ home educational routines, engagement and motivation in educational activities, quality of relationships with teachers and peers, and social-emotional well-being;
student grades, truancy, attendance, academic motivation, and school connectedness, as indicators of engagement;
developmental supports (protective factors) that promote positive academic, social, and emotional outcomes: experiences of caring adult relationships, high expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation at school;
perceived school safety, bullying, and victimization; and
violence perpetration, substance use, and crime-related behavior (e.g., weapons possession).
For the 2020-2021 administration, the Core Module was expanded to assess the scope and nature of substance use and includes two key indicators of mental health: chronic sadness and contemplation of suicide. These questions provide insight into important barriers to learning and development.
The expanded student Core Module measures students’ home educational routines, engagement and motivation in educational activities, quality of relationships with teachers and peers, and social-emotional well-being.
The new content assessed by the Core Module includes the following:
school schedules and attendance (remote and in-school), whether students participate in school inperson or remotely, and participation in synchronous learning activities;
sleep hygiene and physical exercise;
students’ interest in and ability to focus on schoolwork;
teacher support while learning remotely;
virtual interactions with peers; and
social and emotional health, including a 10-item measure of social-emotional distress.
The CHKS interactive dashboard for elementary students and secondary students provides an opportunity to review current data and trend data by state and county. The elementary dashboard includes data from 2020-2021 and the secondary dashboard will be updated to include these data once available.
The interactive graph below displays the public dashboard data from the 2020-21 school year in the 2019-2021 biannual dataset. For elementary students, the 2019-2021 data for the Social Emotional Health Domain includes items that measure frequent sadness, problem solving, self-efficacy and wellness. These results are searchable by gender, instructional mode, and days interacting with friends and teachers.
The example below shows that for Wellness (e.g., Do you feel good and happy?) the overall percentage of students (n = 478, 72%) reported most of the time or all of the time. This is consistent across 2020 and 2021 reporting years and is comparable to the state percentage of 73% for both years.
The Humboldt County elementary percentages of students experiencing chronic sadness declined from 2018 at 23% through 2021 at 21%. This is an important decline that was reported by students through the pandemic. Humboldt percentages are slightly above the state average that are 18% across all four years.