by PJ Rooks
Landmark reporter

Platte County parents have good reason to be proud of their kids, this time not for high test scores, but for low ones.

Answering questions geared toward issues like techno-bullying, smoking, drinking and drug use, many of Missouri's junior high and high school students participated in the state's Safe and Drug Free Schools survey near the end of the last school year and as the results have filtered back to the districts over the summer, it appears that Platte County kids scored below state averages on most drug and alcohol usage-related questions.

Across all the districts, for example, only five ninth graders reported ever having used methamphetamines. Eleven laid claim to cocaine or crack use and 18 said they've used, at some point in their lives, hallucinogens such as LSD, PCP or magic mushrooms.

Where the percentages outpace state averages, it might be fair to step back and have a closer look. Take the West Platte district, for example. Over three percent of the ninth grade student body reported using heroin or 'smack'--that's over four times the state average. Of West Platte's 45 ninth graders, however, only 37 took the survey. So how many ninth graders at West Platte make up that percentage? One. With such a small sample size, the little numbers generated big percentages for West Platte.

By comparison, Park Hill listed three ninth grade kids who'd used heroin but, drawing from much larger group of kids, it still scored just below the state average of 0.7%.

Aside from West Platte, though, and the eight kids at Park Hill who claimed to have used steroids without a doctor's prescription, Platte County kids who took the survey scored below state averages in their claimed uses of non-prescribed over-the-counter and prescription drugs, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, methamphetamines, 'club drugs' such as ecstasy and non-prescribed steroids.

Here's quick rundown of some of the usual parental concerns:

Twelve North Platte kids (20.3%) surveyed said they'd been in a car with someone who was drinking in the last month, five (8.2%) said they'd had at least one drink themselves and four (6.5%) reported having smoked all or part of a cigarette at some point in their lives. In its survey of about 62 kids, none said they had ever used marijuana.

At Park Hill, almost half (45.7%) of the ninth graders surveyed said they'd had alcohol within the last month and 19.9% said they had gotten into a car with someone who was drinking. Cigarette smoking also ranked in at just over 19% and 22.6% of the students said they'd used marijuana in the last month.

At West Platte, 28.1% (nine) ninth graders reported having been in a car, sometime in the previous month, with someone who was drinking alcohol. Exactly a quarter (eight) said they'd had alcohol themselves in the last month, 12.5% (4) said they'd used marijuana in the same time frame and 31.3% (10) said they'd smoked all or part of a cigarette at some point in their lives.

Of the ninth graders surveyed at Platte County R-3, 3.9% (7) said they'd used marijuana in the last month and 11.7% (21) admitted to recent drinking. Thirty-two (17.7%) said they'd been in a car with someone who was drinking alcohol in the last month and 28 (15.6%) said that they had smoked all or part of a cigarette sometime in the past.

R-3 Superintendent Mike Reik said that he'd noticed that his district's results compared favorably with the state's and credited the Pirates ROCK (Raising Outstanding Character Kids) program, the school's recent addition of social workers, and outside efforts made by the community for the scores, but added a caveat:

"As long as (these numbers are) higher than zero, there's always work to do. I don't want to sing our praises too much because there are always kids out there using or engaging in violent behavior or risky behavior and so we have more to do in that area."

West Platte Superintendent Kyle Stephenson said that his district has a drug dog come through once a month.

“To say that it's not an issue, shoot, it's an issue every school deals with," he said. "It's an issue that kids today have to deal with and we didn't have to.”

Stephenson said that he felt the marijuana and alcohol use by freshmen was too high and said that he found some parts of the survey's results disturbing while other areas seemed to make more sense.

"It didn't surprise me that tobacco use in this community was higher than state average," he said, explaining that until very recently, tobacco had been a big piece of the local economy.

Platte County kids did score a little higher on questions about bullying. On a question that read, "In the last 30 days, have you had pictures or text that embarrassed or hurt you posted through the internet?" 14 to 20 percent of students, depending on the district, answered "yes," outrunning the Missouri state average of 13.2%.

"This seems to be a trend nationwide to use media to threaten, bully or harass," said Jeanette Cowherd, assistant to the superintendent in the Park Hill district. "I don't think that our students think it's personal--its not face-to-face. I think all students need training on proper use and also on what their responsibility is as the user of these devices."

For the most part, however, Platte County did stay below state averages for violence, bullying and drug-related behaviors.

Carol Varner, a mother of two Platte County R-3 High School students, said the statistics confirm what she already knew about the area.

"It's still fairly rural in a lot of the good ways," Varner said.

Moving here in 2005 after her husband's retirement from the military, Varner said they did a lot of research before settling on a permanent home.

"We were looking at the Kansas side first, the Lansing/Leavenworth area, but when you compared the school statistics and the demographics, this side of the river seemed like where we were going to fit in," she said. "I haven't seen anything in the five years that my kids have been in that school system that makes me change my mind.”

Varner added, also, that she was pleasantly surprised to see the low statistics for methamphetamine use.

"I didn't expect heroin and crack, but to have it confirmed that meth isn't even really a presence here, that's pretty nice to know," she said.