CLAFLIN — Superintendent Greg Clark related some eye-opening statistics on risk factors faced by Central Plains district students Monday during the monthly meeting of the USD 112 board of education at Central Plains Junior-Senior High School in Claflin.

Clark said 77 percent of USD 112 students in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades recently participated in a Communities that Care statewide survey.

The survey asked the students if they participated in various risk factors such as alcohol use, cigarette use, e-cigarette use, marijuana use, and prescription drug misuse.

They were also questioned about bullying and suicide.

When questioned about alcohol use, 14 percent of the students reported using alcohol one or more times in the past 30 days. Last year, that was 34 percent. A total of 4.4 percent of the students surveyed reported smoking cigarettes one or more times in the past 30 days. Last year that was 5.1 percent.

Approximately 21.3 percent of the students surveyed reported using an e-cigarette one or more times in the past 30 days. Last year, that was 6.3 percent.

Among the USD 112 students surveyed, 2.9 percent reported smoking marijuana one or more times in the past 30 days. Last year the number was 6.5 percent.

Under misuse of prescription drugs, 0.8 percent of students surveyed reported misusing them. Last year that 6.3 percent.

A total of 56.3 percent of the USD 112 students surveyed reported they have seen someone bullied, 12.5 percent reported missing school due to bullying, 29.4 percent had property broken or stolen and 17.7 percent reported being bullied electronically.

Approximately 7.5 percent of boys reported seriously thinking about killing themselves in the past year. Last year, that was 8.5 percent. For girls, 20.6 percent in USD 112 have thought about killing themselves in the past year. That number is up from 6 percent last year.

Three percent of boys reported making a plan on how they would kill themselves. That is up 2.1 percent from last year. For girls, that was 16.2 percent, up from 6.2 percent last year. Zero percent of boys reported trying to kill themselves in the past year. Last year that was 2.1 percent. For girls, 10.3 percent reported trying to kill themselves in the past year. Last year, that was 0 percent.

Clark said he will be meeting Sept. 18 with school counselors in the district to review this data and develop plans of action.

“This is important data that our students give to us,” Clark said. “And it is our charge to try to do something to curb some of these trends.”

In other business:

• After two executive sessions to discuss the potential sale of real property owned by USD 112 in Bushton, approval was given to sell the former Central Plains Middle School building in Bushton to the City of Bushton for $1. The city will be given until the end of the day on Nov. 10 for the first right of refusal.

• Tony Zink, board vice president, clarified the purpose of the Futures Committee.

“Its sole job would be to look into the possibility of bringing the district together under one united district,” he said. “Not separate schools, such as Wilson and Central Plains, but bringing everybody together.”

As a part of that job, Zink said the committee will look into whether the four communities and also the areas surrounding them would be open to coming together for something bigger through mutual sacrifice.

“Each community would by necessity lose their education center and make a sacrifice similar to the one that Bushton has already made,” he said. “That is the sole goal of the committee — to have meetings over the next several months, speak with people inside those towns and discuss that possibility.”

Zink said no one knows yet what that future would look like. Would it be one building or two buildings? Where would it or they be located?

“We do not get to that point,” Zink said.

The committee met again Tuesday, Sept. 10.

Based on the information provided by the committee to the newly elected board in January, the next steps would then be determined.