We all know (and many of us dread) the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) — organized by the California Department of Education — which is taken every spring during a MOSAIC period.
It is used by the district to gain more insights into what students struggle with both on and off campus. It covers a variety of topics such as school safety, harassment, substance abuse and suicide risk. The district then uses survey responses to help plan MOSAIC lessons for the following school year along with other purposes. While the intention of administering CHKS is admirable, from a student perspective, it comes across as a flawed and painful process.
First of all, the test is not mandatory, as in you don’t actually have to answer all the questions accurately or at all. You can skip whole pages with no consequence. The test is also anonymous, so if you don’t take the survey seriously, no one will know. Yes, teachers do supervise the survey occasionally by walking around the classroom, but I could be playing “Block Blast” or doing the New York Times Spelling Bee and they wouldn’t be able to tell.
Look at this interesting pattern from 2024: That year, 92.11% of freshmen, 82.14% of sophomores, 83.33% of juniors and 64.11% of seniors participated. While there was an improvement in 2025, with responses from 95.02% of freshmen, 93.87% of sophomores, 88.97% of juniors and 71.43% of seniors, it’s clear that the longer students are in school, the less they engage with CHKS.
And, of course, the lack of genuine engagement among upperclassmen deeply distorts the survey’s value, which is to gauge the problems students face as they progress through high school.
Another way students undermine the survey results is by clicking random answers. It would be great if we all took it seriously enough to mindfully answer each question, but at the same time, the way many students see it is that the faster you finish the survey, the more of your tutorial you get back. It’s also important to keep in mind that these survey respondents are adolescents who have been robbed of a tutorial during a time when they are especially valuable. As retribution, many students choose to troll the survey, dishonestly clicking the most outrageous choices to skew the survey results.
In my view, the district should be cautious of using CHKS to plan MOSAICs, since the results really may not be representative of students’ true struggles and needs.
Another major downside is within the survey itself. The questions are often mind-numbingly repetitive, making the survey extremely long and tedious. I understand that questions are asked multiple times for consistency and scientific accuracy, but it’s not like I changed my response on how many times I’ve consumed alcohol between the first and fifth time CHKS asked me the question in slightly different forms.
The survey also asks, “How much of this survey did you respond to honestly,” which is an utterly useless question to ask. If I didn’t answer the other questions honestly, what’s to say that I’ll answer this one any differently?
Making the survey more user friendly by reducing the repetitive questions and consolidating similar questions into one question would help how seriously students take the survey. Additionally, administering it during, say, everyone’s English class period as opposed to a tutorial would make it less of an annoyance to students.
CHKS, as it is done right now, is a long and arduous process that undermines the sincerity with which students approach it; however, with a few easy changes in how it is administered, it could be improved and offer a truer picture of what is going on with students.
