A survey of substance abuse prevention education programs in Hawai‘i schools
Authors: Ann Ishida, William Kunsman, Carrie Shoda-Southerland, Marly Wilson
Policy makers and educators continue to debate the presence and effects of substance abuse in Hawai‘i, specifically, government and community efforts to address this threat through substance abuse prevention education programs in Hawai‘i schools. This capstone project focuses and creates a snapshot inventory of substance abuse prevention education programs in Hawai‘i schools, particularly programs that are federally recognized, while attempting to discover the appropriateness of substance abuse prevention curricula. Surveying 257 K-12 public schools and forty-five private schools throughout the state, with assistance from the Safe and Drug Free Schools program of the Office of Curriculum and Instruction of the Department of Education, the capstone project team uses a questionnaire as the survey instrument. In addition, asking forty randomly selected schools to be contributors to an in-depth written interview, the project captures opportunities for future research and studies.
An effort to present a clear and concise understanding of the quantitative and qualitative aggregate survey data of 246 public and private responding schools, offers immediate and accessible facts, while providing for interesting reflections on the in-depth interview statements of ten responding schools.
