Lake Travis school district officials are using statistics to try and help students make good choices when they are confronted with pressure from their peers to drink, smoke and use drugs.

“Scare tactics don’t work,” said Kathleen Hassenfratz, the district’s health and social programs coordinator. “We do that to kids and it lasts for about 36 hours, that effect, and then they forget.”

At the end of last school year, nearly all of the 1,600 students in Lake Travis High School were surveyed about their behavior at parties and on how they perceived the behavior of their peers.

“What we saw is what we were expecting, is that the kids misperceive the amount of drinking that is going on,” Hassenfratz said.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/lake-travis-school-district-using-data-to-encourag/nTcDj/