Pubdate: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 Source: Lynden Tribune (WA) Copyright: 2002 Lynden Tribune Contact: http://www.nas.com/~lyndentrib/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2618 Author: Mary Beth Neal DARE PROGRAM CUT, DRUG EDUCATION RETURNING TO PARENTS' DOMAIN Lynden area DARE graduates didn't know it at the time, but they were the final group of students to walk in Lynden's Farmers Day Parade with the DARE officer in June. The program has been discontinued because of financial strains. The DARE program has died in local schools with Lynden Police Department pulling the plug this year. Students in Lynden, Lynden Christian and Ebenezer Christian schools will no longer receive Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) training through the Lynden Police Department. The program has been cut, mostly for financial reasons. Lynden Police officers provided the national program to fifth graders in local schools for 12 years, with the city paying most of the $240,000 in DARE costs during that time period. A mini-DARE program was offered to second graders. In the program's last years, the combined school systems also contributed approximately $7,000 per year in federal drug education grants towards the program. Lynden Police Chief Jack Foster said budget cuts are behind the decision to cut the DARE program, which has already been cut in other Whatcom County schools except Bellingham. "It's not that we don't want to do it," Foster said. "I've been ordered to cut my budget by 15.2 percent," Foster said, but "13.7 percent is as low as I can go" without eliminating officer positions. Thus, the money the department formerly spent to have a full-time DARE officer for six months each year will now be redirected to return the officer to regular police duties. "I need that officer back on the street and I need that $37,000 back in my budget," Foster said. Lynden City Council Public Safety Committee member Gary Vis agreed. "It wasn't the best use of funds at this time to continue the DARE program," Vis said. "It's unfortunate. I wish we could have continued it." The DARE program has come under criticism nationally for not accomplishing its drug prevention goals among youth. Foster said it's difficult to measure how DARE training impacted students' life choices. Whether or not illegal drug use went down among local youths cannot be determined. However, Foster said, what he valued most about the DARE program is that young students "got to know one of our officers on a person-to-person basis. To me, that was worth a lot," he said. Everson Police Chief Erik Ramstead said his agency stopped providing DARE training to Nooksack Valley Elementary School students in the mid-1990s. Sumas students also received their DARE training at Nooksack Valley Elementary because the Nooksack Valley School District configuration at the time included just a primary school in Sumas. "It became a funding issue, both from the school and from us," Ramstead said. "We needed to put that (officer) back on the road." Ramstead said a health teacher can teach students the physiological effects of drug use, but he also valued the interaction the DARE program provided between officers, schools and children. He said students realized that "cops are people too." - --- MAP posted-by: Alex