On April 22, students gathered in Spangenberg Theater for a different kind of Drug and Alcohol Assembly in which they entered data about their drug and alcohol usage using keypads and saw it analyzed live.

“The idea of the assembly was to have a forum where students could ask questions openly to people who have expertise, in a way that was unconstrained,” Principal Noreen Likins said.

Dean of Students Christine Wang and the Drug and Alcohol Committee arranged for staff and administrators to leave the students by themselves for the entire assembly. Students were led by junior Drug and Alcohol Committee member Ahmad Fayad and senior Dezmon Hunter. There were three student panelists and adult panelists from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, the Palo Alto Police Department and the Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Center.

The assembly stemmed from a marketing campaign organized by the Drug and Alcohol Committee that administered the “Most of Us” surveys in 2006. Posters around campus publicized the results of the survey. According to Wang, however, some students believed the drug and alcohol usage was much higher than what the posters showed. Administrators and students came up with the idea of this assembly to help clear up the misperceptions. “The purpose [of the assembly] was to open up discussion and to get people to realize that the social norm is not that people do drugs,” Fayad said. “It’s the opposite.”

Chris Bui, the technology coordinator of the assembly, arranged for students to have a clicker with which they could vote for three issues to discuss. The ideas for topics came from student questions at the Stressed Out Students (SOS) assembly. “The use of keypads was an anonymous way for students to see and hear what their peers were really thinking and notice how the behaviors and attitudes of peers were different from their own,” Wang said.

While the data collected did not reveal anything unexpected, it was consistent with previous statistics. “What we found most compelling was the data across both assemblies being consistent,” Wang said. The data revealed the misconceptions that the administrators had predicted. For example, when students were asked how often they think Gunn students drink, 9 percent said never. However, the true percentage of students who never drink was revealed to be 42 percent.

After collecting data, students were able to ask panelists questions. According to Wang, the purpose of showing students the data was for them to be able to engage in conversation with their peers. “[The assembly] was about giving students an opportunity to talk as a community about what is important to them personally and as a collective group,” Wang said. Even though some of the students’ questions were unaddressed, the assembly debrief showed that students still appreciated the new format, Wang and Likins said.

“I have the impression that [the assembly] was different enough that [the students] were interested,” Likins said. “It was something that was an experiment, but I think it worked well.”

While the assembly allowed students to openly share their opinion on drug and alcohol issues, some said they felt that they didn’t learn much. “Drug and alcohol problems are always going to be there and the administration can’t change that really,” junior Gina Kirkish said. “They should have had more suggestions and helpful things rather than data and percentages.”