Lebanon
The survey, which asked students about their sexual identity and relationships, triggered an outcry earlier this month from Windsor parents and spurred both the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union and University of New Hampshire researchers to apologize. It also spurred the Windsor school district to halt the survey and to temporarily cut ties with the Lebanon-based WISE, a nonprofit that offers support and prevention services related to gender-based violence.
WISE has a signed memorandum of understanding with Windsor, as well as Lebanon and Woodstock school districts, to conduct a six-year evaluation of its Youth Violence Prevention Program. The Prevention Innovations Research Center at UNH, which designed the survey, has a separate MOU with WISE.
There was no outcry in Lebanon when the survey was administered there, Lebanon Superintendent Joanne Roberts said in a Monday email to the Valley News.
“In Lebanon, students are required to bring in a consent form from their parents/guardians opting in to take a survey, and then students, individually, have the option to participate or not to participate,” Roberts said. “We reviewed our protocols and they were followed.”
The WISE survey asked students about their gender identity and whom they’re attracted to, and whether they had been involved in a romantic relationship in the last 12 months.
“By a relationship we mean more than friendship, like having a partner for planned events like a school dance or going to the movies, having a sexual partner, or hanging out in a group as a couple,” the questionnaire said.
Though Lebanon did not get negative feedback about the survey, the district does plan to put together a team of teachers, counselors and administrators to review all surveys, Roberts wrote.
Windsor Central Supervisory Union Superintendent Mary Beth Banios did not respond to a Monday email or phone message requesting comment about Woodstock’s participation in the WISE survey. Her assistant, Rayna Bishop, was out of the office on Monday, according to a message on the voicemail of the Woodstock-based superintendent’s office.
It is unclear whether the survey has yet been administered in Woodstock. Garon Smail, the principal of Woodstock Union Middle and High Schools, granted permission for WISE to administer the survey there in an Oct. 2017 letter UNH provided to the Valley News.
“The WISE (Youth Violence Prevention) Program is an integrated component of our school’s health curricula,” Smail wrote in last year’s letter. “I believe the proposed research project will greatly benefit my community.”
Vermont and New Hampshire have different requirements for how consent to administer surveys must be obtained. In Vermont, passive consent regulations mandate that parents or guardians must sign a form if they do not want their child to participate in a survey or evaluation. In contrast, New Hampshire schools require active consent, so that a signature usually is required before children can take part in a survey.
In Windsor, WISE and the school’s guidance office sent a letter home to the families of fifth- and sixth-graders informing them of the survey and telling parents of their right to opt out.
At a special Windsor School Board meeting to discuss the survey last week, several parents said that they never received such a form, according to a Windsor On-Air video recording of the meeting. Several asked that the school move to an opt-in system and also asked that they receive information about the lessons being delivered to their children through WISE’s curriculum.
Such surveys “should not be delivered to our children without open and informed consent from the parents,” Brian Dellinger, a father of four children, said in the recording. “…Let’s be transparent with each other.
Others spoke up to say they hoped this survey wouldn’t result in WISE leaving the school entirely.
Windsor High School junior Virginia Snyder told those gathered that WISE’s work is very important to her and her friends.
“I can’t tell you how many times my friends have come up to me and told me how they had to figure out how to say ‘no,’ ” she said.
She also told parents in attendance that abusive relationships can start early.
“Maybe you don’t think it’s your kids,” Snyder said. “It might not be. But there’s another kid.”
Learning about consent — “Can I hold your hand?” — at young ages can help prevent violence, she said.
“WISE, I want you in our school,” Snyder said. “Please welcome them back as soon as possible. Please don’t delay it.”
Windsor School Board Chairwoman Amy McMullen, who once worked as a WISE volunteer, agreed with Snyder that WISE’s work in the schools ought to continue. But McMullen said a pause in the work is necessary in order to ensure that surveys will be properly reviewed by school staff in the future and that families will be given appropriate notice.
The goal moving forward is to “protect our students and protect WISE so that we are moving forward in a positive relationship,” McMullen said.
In the meantime, McMullen said the 12 surveys completed by Windsor fifth-graders before the school stopped administering it will be destroyed.
“No one is going to see those,” she said.
Valley News Staff Writer Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
