Levittown School Uses Mystery For Anti-Vaping Campaign

It started with a mysterious number that left Levittown middle schoolers baffled.

Earlier in the school year, cryptic signs popped up all over Carl Sandburg Middle School in Middletown Township’s Levittown plastered with a simple message: “94.6%” and a QR code.

Teachers and administrators began walking the halls wearing buttons with the exact same number, sparking a buzz of gossip and curiosity.

Now, the secret is finally out.

The stunt was part of a clever campaign to reveal that a whopping 94.6 percent of Sandburg students have never tried vaping.

The data came from an anonymous survey taken last year about health and lifestyle risk factors, and the results caught both students and parents completely off guard.

Another 95.4 percent of kids surveyed said they flat-out disapprove of their classmates vaping.

The anti-vaping blitz and campaign was cooked up by the Neshaminy Coalition for Youth, a nonprofit dedicated to steering local kids away from substance abuse.

The Neshaminy Coalition for Youth partnered with the school district to pilot the program. It funded everything from the initial survey to the mystery banners, posters, and bracelets given out to students.

The strategy, according to those behind it, relied on “social norms.” The idea was that showing kids the overwhelming majority of their peers aren’t doing something bad gives them the muscle to say no, too.

Melanie Swanson, the project coordinator for the Coalition and a prevention specialist at the Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, said in a video produced by the district that the teaser signs were designed to hook the kids. Anyone who scanned the QR code was sent straight to the project’s website.

“So then they realize most kids don’t vape. There can be, actually, positive peer pressure to make healthy choices,” Swanson said. “When they’re confronted at some point in time with the opportunity to vape … when they know most of their peers are making the healthy choice, they are maybe more encouraged to make that same choice.”

Swanson said that students admitted they thought more of their classmates were vaping, and were interested to learn the truth.

Donna Ferro, a health and gym teacher at Sandburg, spearheaded the effort on campus and got fellow staff members to wear the buttons to build up the buzz.

Ferro said the campaign got a ton of healthy conversation going at home and in school.

“They realized not everyone is vaping or trying tobacco products,” Ferro said. “It’s working for this — will it work for other things, alcohol? Is it going to work for not cheating on tests? Is it going to work for not being mean to your parents? Is it going to work for lying?”

The pilot program has been considered a success, and officials are already drawing up plans to bring the campaign to Maple Point and Poquessing middle schools next school year.