Parental ConsentDear Reader,
Over the past several years we have received numerous phone calls regarding what parental consent procedures should be used when giving a drug survey. These calls indicate that there is a lot of uncertainty and conflicting information surrounding this topic. Some callers indicate that they have been advised that they must use written consent, meaning no child can take the survey unless parents sign a consent form. Other callers have received contradictory advice and are seeking guidance on the best procedures to use. As providers of drug surveys we are committed to helping our customers obtain the most accurate data possible with respect to drug use in their community. We are also committed to recommending the best procedures for the ethical protection of the students who take our survey and their families.
In response to these inquiries we have looked into this issue at some length and have prepared the attached summary of our findings. Four distinct questions emerged in our investigation. First, what are the ethical guidelines that pertain to surveying students on these sensitive topics? Second, what are the relevant laws and under what circumstances must one legally collect written parental consent? Third, what effect does it have on the survey results if one uses written parental consent procedures rather than an implied consent process? And fourth, how can one use either of these procedures most effectively, i.e., to collect valid, useful data and without wasting effort or money?
The enclosed materials are offered to you in answer to these questions. Please remember when reading the section on relevant laws that although we have researched this information painstakingly, we are not attorneys. We strongly recommend that you take this information to your own school system’s administration and/or legal department if you have any concerns about what you should do to be in compliance with the law. It remains the responsibility of the school district to administer the survey, and to ensure that it is done ethically and legally.
We welcome your comments and questions. Although we have attempted to provide the most complete information available, this topic is complex enough that there are probably some important pieces of information you can call to our attention. If so, please do! We will be able to share your knowledge with many of your cohorts in the prevention field nationwide, and it will truly be a service to all.
Thank you for your interest!
Sincerely,
Patricia Waters
Executive Director
Part 1: Ethical Conduct of Surveys
What are the ethical considerations in conducting a student survey on drug use?
Two documents that give excellent guidance are the American Psychological Association’s "Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research with Human Participants" (1973) and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research’s "Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research" (1979).
Our discussion applies the ethical standards of these documents to the specific situation of administering The American Drug and Alcohol Survey to students in a school setting. The most relevant concerns include evaluating the risks and benefits of the project; providing complete information about the project to all participants; respecting the right of potential participants to decline to participate without any coercion or punishment; and protecting the confidentiality of any information that is collected.
A. Evaluate the risks and benefits of the survey project, and its ethical acceptability before deciding to go forward.
Risks to participants:
Surveys in general are considered to put participants at very minimal or no risk. There is the possibility of some students feeling anxious, stressed, or embarrassed, by being asked questions about drug use. In the vast majority of cases this does not create any risk of serious harm. By allowing student’s to leave the questionnaire blank (with no penalty) if they don’t want to answer the questions, this problem can be further neutralized. (see Part 1, Section C in this discussion).
Occasionally, some people will suggest that the questions on a survey may incite students to become more curious about the subject, and thus lead them to begin using drugs. We observe that young people receive information about drugs from a multiplicity of sources. The average ten- year-old already knows the names of the drugs that exist. It is highly unlikely that a survey will suggest anything new. As an extra precaution in this regard, however, we do offer an abbreviated version of the American Drug and Alcohol Survey for 4th to 6th graders, which does not include a full list of drug names.
Risks to the community:
We often hear concerns about the risk of "scape-goating" if a survey is undertaken. School systems may fear that if they collect data on substance use among students, the community-at-large will blame the schools for any problems that are revealed. On occasion this does indeed occur, but it is not the norm. We find that the risks of ignoring the issue are far more certain and far more harmful. By refusing to proactively address the issue of youth substance use, a community creates a likelihood that a greater number of its young people will experience the problems and pains of abuse and addiction.
The potential benefits to the community that collects valid information, by contrast, include:
* break down of denial within the community through the presentation of objective data
* funding for new or continuing prevention efforts by providing fact base for grant proposals
* better prevention programs because evaluation leads to improvement
* better program accountability and therefore better use of public resourcesEach person considering a survey effort should weigh the risks and benefits for the particular situation. After our own process of examination, we at RMBSI are confident that such a data collection effort is an essential and highly valuable undertaking with a risk factor that is "none" to "minimal."
B. Provide complete information to participants.
Survey organizers should inform the participants of all features of the survey effort that reasonably might be expected to influence willingness to participate, and explain all other aspects about the survey process about which a participant inquires. In the case of working with minors, their parents or/guardians should receive information about the project, and the young people themselves should also be fully informed. A letter to parents should be sent home a few weeks before the survey is scheduled, describing the nature of the survey, the risks to the students, and the way in which the project will be conducted. The letter should also let parents know that they may come to the school office to read the questionnaire (an unanswered copy) in its entirety before the survey is given. A local contact person’s name and phone number should also be provided to allow parents to call for more information. Finally, parents should be told in the letter that if they do not want their child to participate he or she will not be asked to take the survey (see next section for more details).
Students should be informed by the teacher reading a set of instructions aloud. The teachers should also be given detailed information in advance, so that they can answer any questions.
C. Voluntary participation.
Ethical research practice requires the investigator to respect the individual’s freedom to decline to participate in research or to discontinue participation at any time. The obligation to protect this freedom requires special vigilance when the investigator is in a position of power over the participant. There is no question that adult school district employees hold a position of power over students. It is essential that staff members who are administering the survey understand very clearly that students are NOT required to take the survey, and there is NO penalty for declining to answer some or all of the questions. This message must be conveyed clearly to students. On the other hand, there should be no hint of encouraging students to refuse to participate, either. Students should be told the reasons why the survey is beneficial and sincerely asked to complete the questionnaire. The support of the teachers who are supervising the survey effort in the classroom is essential. Students who are not completing surveys or who have finished answering the questions should be given something constructive and quiet to do so they do not disturb students who are working on the questionnaire.
D. Confidentiality and anonymity.
Information obtained about the research participants during the course of an investigation is confidential. Procedures for protecting the anonymity of the students completing a survey should be explained to the students and followed very carefully.
No names or other identifiers are written on the surveys. At the end of the class period, a large envelope should be passed around the room. Each student is to place his/her questionnaire in the envelope. They don’t have to be in any order, so that once placed in the envelope no one can tell whose survey is whose. When all the surveys from that classroom are collected, the envelope should be immediately sealed up. The outside of the envelope should contain the following information: School name, school district name, town and state. The envelope should be turned in to the person coordinating the effort for the school building as quickly as possible. The coordinator will check off each classroom by room number or teacher’s name on a checklist to ensure that all the rooms have returned their forms. When all forms are collected, the unopened envelopes should be placed in a box and returned to RMBSI. No one at the local level should ever open or look at the surveys. Once they leave the students hands, the next people to see them should be RMBSI staff -- who have no enrollment lists or names of students at any time. The data from the survey is then analyzed to produce data on the rates of behavior and attitudes among the surveyed population as a whole. No single student’s responses are ever presented.
Finally, RMBSI holds in confidence both the results of the survey and the identities of our clients. Unless a client gives us situation-specific permission, we don’t tell other prospective clients that John Doe School District in Anytown uses our survey, nor do we release the data to any outside party other than the client.
Part 2: Legal Conduct of Surveys
A. State Laws
What are the laws governing procedures for surveying students on alcohol and other drug use?
A number of states have attempted in recent years to pass legislation that mandates written parental consent prior to administration of a youth drug and alcohol survey. A number of states have successfully passed such legislation. We have found it difficult to keep up with legislative efforts in 50 different states, and suggest that you contact your state’s Department of Education to obtain information about state-specific laws. If state law in your state requires you to collect written parental consent, it is important that you comply.
B. Federal Laws - Summary
There is one piece of federal legislation that relates to the legalities of parent and students’ rights when a school system gives an anonymous student survey on drug and alcohol use. It is part of Title 20 of the U.S. Code, Chapter 31 (General Provisions Concerning Education, also known as General Education Provisions Act or "GEPA"). The section is Section 1232h. Protection of pupil rights. This Section is referred to as "PPRA" for "Protection of Pupil Rights Act," or as "the Grassley Amendment" for it’s author, Senator Grassley. This section was enacted in 1994. However, in 1978 a different piece of text, authored by Senator Hatch was enacted with the same title and section number (1232h., Protection of Pupil Rights). It is important to note that the 1994 PPRA replaced the 1978 PPRA (or the Grassley Amendment replaced the Hatch Amendment).
C. PPRA
The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment of 1994 is explicitly relevant to student drug and alcohol survey projects. However, it is relevant ONLY if the funds being used to "develop or implement" the survey are from the U.S. Department of Education (this does include all Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Grants).
The PPRA establishes two rights for parents: The first is the right to review any materials used in connection with any survey, evaluation, or analysis funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
The second right defines seven "protected topics" and says: "No student shall be required to submit to a survey, evaluation or analysis that reveals information concerning (any of the seven protected topics) without the prior written consent of his/her parents or legal guardian." The protected topics are:
1) political affiliation
2) mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student or his family
3) sex behavior and attitudes
4) illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior
5) critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships
6) legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers
7) income (other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program).Alcohol use by juveniles and use of illegal drugs clearly do fall within the definition of item number four on this list.
"No student shall be required to submit to a survey, evaluation or analysis that reveals information concerning (any of the seven protected topics) without the prior written consent of his/her parents or legal guardian." The key words in this text are "shall not be required to."
After Congress enacts legislation that affects the operation of the Department of Education, the Secretary of Education issues regulatory guidance to assist schools in interpreting and following the law. This is necessary because there is usually a certain amount of ambiguity in the wording that is used in legislation. Generally, the Secretary will issue a notice of proposed rule-making with an invitation for public comment before issuing final regulations. In the case of the PPRA, enacted on October 10, 1994, the Secretary issued "proposed rule-making" on August 28, 1995, but has not ever issued final regulations (as of August 2001). Interpretation of the PPRA therefore remains somewhat open ended. Our best efforts in interpreting what the law requires lead us to the proposed rule-making published in the Federal Register on August 28, 1995, to rulings by the Department of Education on related matters, and the ruling of a Federal District Court judge in the only case to have tested this law to date. That case is currently being appealed, but has not yet been heard by the appellate court.
Regarding the word "required," the proposed rule-making states "The Secretary has not interpreted ‘required’ as used in section 445(b) of GEPA. By not interpreting the word ‘required’, the Secretary will not be imposing a single rule to address a myriad of situations. Recipients will make initial judgments in individual cases as to whether a survey is or has been ‘required’ in the administration of their activities. In the event a complaint is filed with the Department, the Department will determine on a case-by-case basis in light of all the circumstances whether a student has been required to submit to a survey."
A legal analysis on the PPRA prepared jointly by the Offices of the General Counsel of the National Education Association and the National School Boards Association in December 1995 states "In one recent ruling, (the U.S. Department of Education) implied that assigning a student to perform a given activity does not make the activity mandatory for purposes of the PPRA, unless the student suffers some adverse consequence for failing to do so." The NEA/NSBA citation given for this ruling is "Priv. Ltr. Rul. Education Dept. - Office of Family Policy Compliance (May 13, 1994); Priv. Ltr. Rul. Education Dept. - Office of Family Policy Compliance (Mar. 28, 1995)."
Since the legislation was passed, there has been only one court case based on the PPRA. In February, 2001, a judge of the Federal District Court in Newark, New Jersey issued a ruling supporting the use of an implied consent procedure for an anonymous survey that had been given in a New Jersey school district. The school district had sent parents a letter explaining that their students would be asked to take a voluntary and anonymous survey, and that the parents had the right to review the blank survey in the schools’ offices. The court ruled that because the letter emphasized that participation was voluntary and the students were informed that the answers would be held in confidentiality, the school district had complied with the intent of the PPRA. The parents who had filed the lawsuit against the school district planned to appeal the ruling, but as of October, 2001, the case has not yet been heard by an appellate court.
It is our opinion at RMBSI that an ethically conducted survey should tell the students clearly that they are not required to complete the survey but that their participation will benefit the community by providing accurate facts about the nature of youth substance use. They should be told that they may leave any questions unanswered if they don’t feel comfortable answering them. It is also our opinion, based on the preceding evidence, that if this ethical procedure is used, then it is legally unnecessary to obtain written parental permission for the student to take the survey (unless a state-level law requires written consent on different grounds). The PPRA requirement is to obtain written permission only if the student is "required to submit" to the survey.
Perhaps it seems as though we are splitting hairs. We believe parents should have the opportunity to protect their children from anything detrimental. We are not interested in thwarting efforts to protect parents or students. We do support our clients in performing their surveys in a legal manner. Part 3 of this discussion describes the effects of using an active consent procedure, and describes an alternative, ethically-sound consent process that can be used. Where the law does NOT necessitate collecting written permission from each parent we strongly urge our clients to use an "implied consent" procedure instead. Therefore understanding the precise meaning of the PPRA is important in deciding whether you should be collecting written consent or not.
To summarize:
- Check with your state’s department of education to find out if your state has a law requiring written parental consent for student drug-use surveys.
- If your state does not have such requirements, consider whether the federal PPRA pertains to your situation. If the funding for your survey effort does NOT come from the U.S. Department of Education then the PPRA is NOT relevant to your survey project.
- If you are using U.S. D.O.E. funding, you still may not need to use written parental consent. If students are NOT required to submit to the survey, then you do not have to collect written parental permission before giving the survey to the students according to the PPRA as we understand it. However, a very conservative interpretation of the PPRA may lead districts using U.S. Department of Education funding to use a written parental consent process even if students aren’t required to participate. In some states in the past few years the state level Department of Education representatives who handle Safe and Drug Free Schools Grant funding have taken to instructing local school districts that they should use written parental consent procedures to comply with the PPRA. However, this is certainly not the case in all states.
- Regardless of the parental consent procedure used, RMBSI advocates carefully following ethical guidelines in your survey administration
D. FERPA
Another law, commonly referred to as FERPA is sometimes mentioned by people in schools as being the law that they think "requires" them to use written parental consent before giving a student drug and alcohol survey. This is misinformation. The wording of the law uses some terms that sound similar to the terms used in a discussion of parental consent for surveying, so it’s easy to see where the confusion begins.
Like the PPRA, FERPA ("Family educational rights and privacy act") is part of Title 20 of the U.S. Code, Chapter 31 (General Provisions Concerning Education, also known as General Education Provisions Act or "GEPA"). It is found in Section 1232g. It is also referred to as "the Buckley Amendment" because it was authored by Senator Buckley.
FERPA does give parents:
* the right to access their child(ren)’s educational record(s)
* the right to have their child(ren)’s educational record(s) amended if they find something inaccurate
* the right to have some control over the disclosure of their child(ren)’s educational record(s) to other partiesThis last right requires that school districts obtain written parental consent before releasing educational records to any party who doesn’t have a legitimate educational interest (i.e., a need to review the record to fulfill professional responsibilities for the school system).
The definition of an "educational record" is "those records, files, documents, and other materials which (i) contain information directly related to a student; and (ii) are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution." Examples offered by the Department of Education are:
* date and place of birth, parent/guardian’s addresses, where parents can be contacted in emergencies;
* grades, test scores, courses taken, academic specializations and activities, official letters regarding a student’s status in school;
* special education records;
* disciplinary records;
* medical and health records that the school creates or collects and maintains;
* documentation of attendance;
* personal information such as a student’s identification code, social security number, picture, or other information that would make it easy to identify or locate a student.The American Drug and Alcohol Survey is administered anonymously. Students do not put their names or any other identifiers on the surveys. Surveys are collected by having the students place their completed forms into an envelope - one envelope per classroom, which is labeled with the name of the school building, school district, city and state. The envelopes are promptly sealed and shipped to RMBSI’s offices for analysis. The reports that we prepare show percentages of the total population surveyed by grade level, but do not provide other identifiers. Soon after our analysis is completed the original survey questionnaires are destroyed.
The survey is not part of a student’s educational record because the student is not identifiable. No one can go back to a survey form and identify that that form was completed by any particular student. The school staff never sees the completed surveys, as they are placed in the envelopes by the students immediately after completion, and shipped directly to our research firm. Our firm never has any educational record information -- no class lists with names, etc. -- only the number of students enrolled in a grade at each school site.
The impact of FERPA regulations on school district’s operating procedures is very important, and has received quite a bit of attention. The issue in general of parents having rights to privacy comes close to touching on the question "Do parents have a right to say "yes" or "no" to their child completing a survey about drug use?" And FERPA does require written parental permission before releasing educational records. So it is easy to understand why so many people think FERPA is the law that governs this matter. However, it is not directly relevant to the topic of giving anonymous surveys, which are NOT part of a student’s educational record.
Part 3: "Active Consent" vs. "Implied Consent"
A. Definitions
For purposes of this discussion, the term "active consent" means collecting a signature from the parent of each child authorizing you to give them the survey. If you have not collected a parent’s written permission, you do not give the child the survey. This is what the PPRA requires you to do if you "require students to submit" to the survey and you are using U.S. Department of Education funding. In some states, state legislation may also require the use of active consent.
The terms "implied consent" and "passive consent"mean that you provide all the parents with information about the survey before you intend to give it to the students. Provide the parents with all the necessary details, including the information that they can have their child excluded from the survey by signing a permission-denial form and returning it to the school, or by calling or stopping by the school office at any time before the survey is given. After this, the survey is given to all students whose parents did not object by one means or another. Failure to voice an objection is considered implied permission.
B. The Effect of Active Consent
When using an active consent procedure, unless you go to a great deal of extra effort, typically somewhere between 20% and 70% of the students will bring back signed permission slips allowing them to complete the survey. Does this mean that between 80% and 30% of parents object to their children taking surveys? No! Researchers have followed up with parents who did not return the permission forms to find out. The most common reason given was "I just didn’t get around to it."
Most parents receive a stack of papers from their children’s schools every week throughout the school year. Even parents who are strongly interested in their childrens’ education find it difficult to respond in a timely manner to every paper that comes home. After they sign the permission form, many busy parents will inadvertently leave it on the kitchen counter, or carry it around in their briefcase or car for a couple weeks and forget to return it to the school. This does not indicate an objection to their child being surveyed. Those parents who promptly sign and return the permission form are more likely to be: a) parents of elementary school students, b) interested in and involved in their children’s education and their children’s lives in general, c) part of well-organized, highly-functioning households.
Unfortunately, this means that a disproportionate number of the students who are allowed to take the survey under an active consent process may be ones who are at lower level of risk for substance abuse problems. If you survey only these students, the results will show the valid responses of just this selected group. If you presume that this biased sample is representative of the entire student population, you may be lead to believe that the level of student drug use is lower than it really is. This does not serve your prevention efforts well. The point of surveying is to collect valid data from the entire population, or as representative a sample as possible.
There are methods described in Part 4 which will improve the return rates sufficiently so that a valid survey can be done with an active consent process. An 80% to 90% return-rate will require more effort, but will provide data that accurately reveals the nature of local student use. Researchers who recruit school districts to participate in university based research projects have typically found that active consent procedures get low response rates. However, we have observed in the past few years that among our clients using active consent procedures (e.g., school districts conducting surveys for their own purposes) responses have been obtained from as many as 97% of all parents! Therefore, we advise you that with sufficient commitment, organization, and effort, active consent procedures can be used to obtain valid survey data.
Part 4: A "How-To" Guide
A. How to Use an Implied Consent Procedure
A well run survey needs an organized coordinator in the school system. If you are surveying in only one school building, prepare a checklist (we provide a form) showing each teacher who will administer the survey. Obtain the enrollment number for each classroom. Make copies of the parent information letter and of the teacher and student instructions. Schedule a staff meeting with the involved teachers where you distribute the instructions. Discuss your goals for surveying with the staff, and go over the procedures, emphasizing the importance of maintaining anonymity for each student, the voluntary nature of student’s participation, the need to maintain tight classroom discipline during the survey period, and the importance of answering parents and students questions accurately. If at all possible, mail the parent information letters out from the main school office. If this is not possible, distribute the parent letters to the classroom teachers and have them send the letters home with the students. Either way the letters should go home about one to two weeks prior to the scheduled survey date.
If you are surveying in several school sites, you may want to line up someone to coordinate at each building. Prepare a master checklist showing each site in the region where you will survey, and have the building coordinators prepare the additional checklists described above. Hold a meeting of all building coordinators to go over the procedures and then delegate to them to conduct staff meetings in their own buildings. Parent information letters may be sent from either the school district’s main office or the offices of each school site.
Some schools have taken additional steps to ensure that parents are well informed in advance of the survey. Some have made announcements at school events attended by parents. Some have published articles in their school newsletters. In small communities where there is only one local newspaper, a public notice, letter-to-the-editor, or small advertisement may be published. These additional steps are not mandatory, but if feasible, will make sure that most parents do receive the information.
Make sure that a copy of all questionnaires you will be using are available in the school’s main office so that parents have the opportunity to read through the questions if they are interested. Front office staff members and all teachers should be prepared to collect lists of parents who respond that they want their children excluded from the survey, since parents may either call or mail in the forms. It is very important to keep a complete list of students who may not be given the survey, and to ensure that their classroom teachers are aware. Make sure that the classroom teachers are given the final list updates before the survey session. A quiet alternate activity may be offered in the classroom, or those students can be called out of class before the survey is given and provided with a supervised study hall time.
In most school districts we have observed fewer than 5% of the population will ask that their children be excluded. Some additional students will exclude themselves. All in all, allowing for both parental and self-exclusion, and allowing for absentees on the day of the survey, most districts will survey between 80% and 95% of their students when using an implied consent procedure.
B. How to Use an Active Consent Procedure
First and foremost, remember that using an implied consent procedure is preferable to an active consent procedure. Use the active consent process only if it is determined that your situation legally requires it. See Part 2 of this document for information about who must use active consent.
The key to a successful active consent procedure is to make it easy for the parents to sign and return the permission forms!!! This requires a high level of organization and foresight for the survey coordinator. It also requires the cooperation and support of the rest of the school staff.
Consent forms should be returned by ALL parents, indicating either that they do or do not give permission for their children to participate. However, if you’re unable to get certain parents to reply you must consider their response to be "no, don’t survey my child."
The best opportunity for collecting a signed permission form for most students is during the back-to-school registration period. If your school has a few other forms which HAVE to be signed by the parent before the child begins the school year, you can piggy-back your permission form with these other papers. You may or may not want to give the survey early in the school year. Either way, provide information about the survey project and get signed permission slips at the beginning of the year. This will save you a lot of effort later on. If you choose to, you can send out an information-only notice shortly before the survey as well.
Some districts are apparently uncomfortable with collecting permission during the registration period, under the impression that this is not fully complying with the spirit of the Protection of Pupil Rights Act. The author of the 1994 PPRA, Senator Grassley of Iowa stated "[M]y amendment does not tell school districts how they are to gain written consent from parents. Some school districts will probably simply add a form at the beginning of the year for parents to sign, telling them that their children will be involved in these kinds of activities." (140 Cong. Rec. S862 (daily ed. Feb. 4, 1994). He went on to note that this procedure would be adequate to comply with the consent requirement.
If your administration insists on sending home separate letters shortly before the survey is given, it is still possible to gather a reasonable level of return. The key elements are sending letters in such a way that parents will see them, keeping good checklists, and following up tenaciously with the parents. One highly effective technique for ensuring that parents see the letter is to staple it to report cards that are mailed home.
In terms of follow up, gaining the support of other school staff members will allow the work to be shared more evenly. If each classroom teacher is able to follow up with his/her own student’s parents, the effort is likely to meet with success. Offering small incentives to the teachers of classrooms with high return rates (regardless of whether the parents say "yes" or "no" on the forms they return) has been shown to help. In some cases it may be possible to offer very small rewards to the students themselves for bringing back the forms. It is likely that some parents will return their forms only after two or three reminders.
Again, before you send out the parent notices, make sure that copies of all questionnaires you will be using are available in the school’s main office for parental review. Designate school building level coordinators for each site in the district, and meet with them. Subsequently, each building coordinator should meet with the teachers who will be supervising the survey. Distribute checklists and instructions to all (these are provided with the surveys by RMBSI). School office staff members and all teachers should be prepared to maintain lists of which parents have responded, and which will allow their children to participate. It is very important to keep complete lists of which students may and which may not be given the survey. Make sure that the classroom teachers are given the final list updates before the survey session. A quiet alternate activity may be offered in the classroom, or those students can be called out of class before the survey is given and provided with a supervised study hall time.
Using careful checklists, incentives, and following up two to three times with the parents who have not yet responded will enable most school districts to survey approximately 50 to 60% of their student population when using an active consent procedure. This should be sufficient to ensure that the data is reasonably accurate, although it is probably safest to assume that it offers a conservative estimate of youth drug use in the community. As noted earlier, however, several highly organized RMBSI clients using active consent in recent years have managed to get responses from virtually all of their populations’ parents, and have surveyed as many as 97% of their students. If you find that you must use an active consent procedure, set your sites high, because success is possible!
References & Where to Find Them
References related to Part 1: Ethics
Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research with Human Participants
The American Psychological Association, 1973.
find this document at your local or university libraryThe Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Report of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. April 18, 1979.
find this document at your local or university library or on the World Wide Web at http://www.med.umich.edu/irbmed/ethics/belmont/BELMONTR.HTM or http://eccobsee.swin.edu.au/studes/ethics/Belmont.htmlReferences related to Part 2: Legislation
Family educational rights and privacy act. Title 20 USC Sec. 1232g.
find the text of U.S. Code at your local library or on the internet.
There are many paths to use to access the U.S.Code. We found it at
gopher://hamilton1.house.gov:70Final FERPA Regulations issued by the Secretary of Education on November 21, 1996.
find this in the Federal Register, Nov. 21, 1996.Summary information about FERPA found on the U.S. Department of Education website at http://www.ed.gov/NCES/pubs97 and http://www.ed.gov/offices/OM/ferpa.htmlProtection of pupil rights act. Title 20 USC Sec. 1232h.
find the text of U.S. Code at your local library or on the internet.
There are many paths to use to access the U.S.Code. We found it at
gopher://hamilton1.house.gov:70Memorandum: The Rights and Obligations Established by The Protection of Pupil Rights
Amendment. Dec. 1, 1995. Prepared jointly by the Offices of General Counsel of the National Education
Association and the National School Boards Association.
find this document by contacting the NSBA Council of School Attoneys Info-FAX Library
at 1-800-809-COSA, or contact Lynday Andrews, Manager of Legal Services for COSA at (703)838-6738Protection of Pupil Rights - Notice of proposed rulemaking.
find this document in the Federal Register Vol. 60 No. 166. Monday August 28, 1995 or
by contacting the NSBA Council of School Attorneys Info-FAX Library
at 1-800-809-COSANew York Times article dated February 21,2001 "Privacy Suit Over Student Survey Thrown Out" and article dated February 25, 2001 "Education: Student Survey’s Unexpected Lessons" can be accessed for a small fee through the archives located at www.nytimes.com .
References related to Part 3: "Active Consent" vs. "Implied Consent"
the following research articles can be found through the nearest university library
Dent, C., Galaif, J., Sussman, S., Burtun, D. & Flay, B. 1993. "Demographic, psychosocial and behavioral differences in samples of actively and passively consented adolescents." Addictive Behaviors, 28. 51-56.
Ellickson, P.L. & Hawes, J.A. The RAND Corporation. 1989. "An assessment of active versus passive methods for obtaining parental consent" Evaluation Review, 13(1). 45-55.
Kearney, K.A., Hopkins, R.H., Mauss, A.L., & Weisheit, R.A. 1983. "Sample bias resulting from a requirement for written parental consent." Public Opinion Quarterly, 47. 96-102.
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