Health & Fitness
Does Fairfax County Care More About Its Teens Than Montgomery County?
Montgomery County can't describe the behaviors of its teens in the same manner done in Fairfax County. We have no idea how many teens are at risk of contracting a STD or joining a gang.
If you live in Fairfax County, you can answer these questions about your teenagers:
- How many sexually-active teens use condoms? (Answer: 65.6 percent)
- How many teens get cyber-bullied by school classmates? (Answer: 23 percent)
- How many teens belong to a gang? (Answer: 3.6 percent)
- How many teens are pressured to have sex? (Answer: 6.2 percent)
- How many teens attempted suicide? (Answer: 3.6 percent)
If you live in Montgomery County, you cannot answer these questions about your teenagers.
Since 2001, our Fairfax neighbors have monitored their teens through its Fairfax County Youth Survey. The survey—administered every other year—is a fairly aggressive county-wide effort cosponsored by the Fairfax County Government and Fairfax Public County Schools. Read about the effort and review the actual survey results by clicking here.
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At the Fairfax website, one also will see this statement explaining why Fairfax commits to its survey effort:
“The results provide a snapshot of our youth in Fairfax County but also serve as a barometer of our own effectiveness as a community in fostering healthful choices in our young people. County, school, and community-based organizations rely on the results to assess youth needs and strengths, develop programs, monitor trends, measure countywide outcomes, and guide countywide planning of prevention efforts. … Most importantly, the survey gives parents, youth, and community members a sense of our challenges and our strengths and how to build upon those strengths.”
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So, Fairfax uses data to aid in the development of its youth programs. I wonder what Montgomery County, including the public schools, uses to plan, guide and evaluate its youth programs. Data? I doubt it. And if there is data, is it shared with the public?
I’m going out on the limb here. My guess is Montgomery County can’t describe the behaviors of its teens in the same manner done in Fairfax County. Period! We have no idea how many of our teens, for example, are at risk of contracting a sexually-transmitted disease, joining a gang, carrying a gun or becoming obese. And at the end each day, I actually believe Fairfax knows more than Montgomery because across the Potomac River they care more about their teens.
I never thought I'd ask this question, but why can’t we be more like Fairfax?
