According to the 2013 California Healthy Kids Survey, which was administered to all four of the AUHSD schools that year, more than 900 students from the Acalanes Union High School District (AUHSD) seriously considered suicide. Twenty-four percent of ninth-graders and 26 percent of 11th-graders reported feeling so sad or hopeless that they had stopped doing some usual activities — a classic symptom of depression.
A subsequent survey taken in 2015, the Challenge Success Survey, revealed that little has changed since then.
The Challenge Success Survey was administered by the Challenge Success program, a nonprofit group associated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education. The results showed that large numbers of Acalanes High School students admitted to feeling high levels of stress, to cheating, and, on average, students were getting barely six hours of sleep.
"I was completely shocked and horrified by that figure," said Mandy Chivers, Acalanes High School Parents Club vice president of communications. "Something has to change. As parents, we can't just sit here with these statistics —we need to make something happen."
Read the entire story on the website of Lamorinda Weekly.
