By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Nearly 90 percent of Brandon High School students feel generally safe while at school. At the same time, 51.1 percent of students have felt sad or hopeless every day for at least two weeks at a time.
The feelings of local students are a segment of an extensive survey conducted in early February, for seventh, ninth, and 11th grades at Brandon High School and Brandon Middle School who participated in the MiPhy survey.
MiPhy or Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth, surveys students on behaviors and attitudes related to possible at-risk behaviors in students. The survey is completely anonymous and voluntary. It is conducted by the Michigan Department of Education and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

“It was created in about 2005, and the first real year it was put into place was the 2007-2008 school year, and during that time it’s been given across the state of Michigan,” said Carly Stone, director of curriculum and instruction at Brandon Schools. “
At its peak, about 760 schools participated in taking this survey.”
The survey asks questions about exercise, nutrition, injuries, tobacco, alcohol, sexual activity and other drug use.
“It asks about perceptions of these subjects, so it kind of gives a picture of the culture amongst the student body,” said Stone. “Results can be used to help schools make data-driven decisions to improve prevention and health promotion programming.”
This year, the district participated as a requirement for the 31N grant that they received, which enabled them to hire additional counselors and social workers this past year. Some of the results of the survey were presented at the Monday night board of education meeting.
Some of the positive survey takeaways for the seventh grade participants included: 82 percent of students feel they can go to a parent for help with their personal problems; 87.6 percent of students feel that their friends have not used tobacco recently; 87 percent of students have a friend that participated in after-school activities; 93.3 percent of students enjoy spending time with their mom and 88.3 percent with their dad; 96.2 percent of students have at least one friend who tries really hard in school ; 93.6 percent of students have a lot of chances to get involved in sports, clubs etc. outside of school; 97.3 percent of students reported that their parents felt cigarette or marijuana use to be wrong or very wrong.
“They’re busy, they’re involved,” said BMS principal Mike Tucker. “We know idle time, idle hands are not good for teenagers. The busier they are, the better they are. And our kids are getting the message at home that cigarette or marijuana use is wrong.”
However, some of the negative takeaways include: 33.6 students have been bullied on school property in the last year; 25 percent have been electronically bullied in the past 12 months; 78.9 percent have heard rumors or lies being spread about students; 27.1 percent of students did something to purposely hurt themselves without wanting to die; 17.2 percent of students actually created a plan to attempt suicide in the last year; 12.5 percent of students ever tried to kill themselves.
“It’s very easy to be brave behind a phone, behind your SnapChat, behind your social media,” said Tucker.
He also said that the rumors or lies are very common among students.
“That’s the drama that we talk about, that’s kids worrying about others instead of worrying about themselves, that’s very common. But I didn’t realize that number was that high,” he said.
He went on to say that the students who are hurting themselves are doing so for control.
“That could be cutting, bruising, burning, and that’s for control,” he said. “When they feel their life is out of control, they control how they harm themselves and when they harm themselves.”
Tucker also said the middle school will continue to incorporate new and additional positions in the building, including the two current counselors, to address the issues. He said they are also doing some work with the character traits and terms highlighted in the elementary school Positivity Project that the students had participated, and highlighting those traits in the classroom.
“There’s so much good, but there’s so much we need to work on as well,” he said.
Likewise, BHS principal Dan Stevens presented on both the good and bad going on with the high school.
As far as the good, 89.2 percent of students generally feel safe while at school; 91.1 percent of students claim to work hard while at school; 80.9 percent feel they are given opportunities to talk to teachers one on one at school; 80 percent of students report they have not used a vape; 86.1 percent enjoy spending time with their mom, 83.3 with their dad; 82.9 percent of students feel comfortable going to their parents with personal problems.
“The biggest thing that stuck out to me is how supported our kids feel about their families,” said Stevens.
And while 80 percent of students say they haven’t used a vape, that means 20 percent of those students have.
“That’s a high number to me,” said Stevens. “In this world of vaping, it’s true a lot of our kids use vapes, but 80 percent say they don’t. We need to work on that other 20 percent for sure.”
Some of the points that Stevens highlighted as places to work on included: 17.3 percent of students have been bullied on school property in the last year; 67.8 percent have witnessed others being called names or being put down; 28.2 percent of students have seen bullying messages towards classmates on social media; 51.1 percent of students have felt sad or hopeless every day for at least two weeks at a time; 12.9 percent of students have actually created a plan to attempt suicide in the last year.
“I am going to tell you, when I talked to our assistant principal Megan who deals with most of the discipline, I’m making this number up but I’m probably not far off when I say 85 to 90 percent of the issues at school start on social media,” he said. “It starts outside of school and is brought in.”
As far as mental health, Stevens was surprised by the number of students who said they had created a plan to attempt suicide.
“Obviously we want that number to be 0 as well,” he said. “If you talk about 13 percent of the students in our building, I think that’s 91 students if you played out the percentages. That’s a staggering number.”
He says that while he thinks they are already making dents in that staggering number with the programs they’re already doing, such as the Destroying Illusions assembly that was recently put on, there is still plenty of work to do.
That work includes reevaluating the health curriculum and identifying gaps in the curriculum and filling those gaps. He also said the high school has already previously identified the kids struggling the most academically, socially and emotionally and created a class with those students to get them the extra help they may need. There are also other peer-to-peer support classes for students, and after school programs.
Both schools would like to work with community partners moving forward, and will be updating their Multi-teir Systems of Support (MTSS) protocols.
“We need to be partners with the community, we can’t do it alone, the community can’t do it alone, the students can’t do it alone,” said Stevens. “We really feel it’s important to utilize things like BGYA, programs through Community Ed, Brandon Coalition.”
The district will also be working on district-wide programs to support emotional and social health and well-being.