Pubdate: Sun, 14 Apr 2002
Source: Cape Cod Times (MA)
Copyright: 2002 Cape Cod Times
Contact:  http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/72
Author: Karen Jeffrey

FUNDING CUTS PUT DARE EFFORT ON ENDANGERED LIST

In another era Meaghan Sennott might have described the Sandwich program as 
"the cat's meow" or even "groovy."

But as a fifth-grader in today's world Meaghan sums the program up in a 
word amplified by an adverb. "Awesome, totally awesome."

It is a view shared by her parents, her friends and many teachers across 
the Cape. It was the view of more than 100 parents and grandparents who 
attended a DARE graduation Friday at the Mattacheese Middle School in West 
Yarmouth.

But it is not an outlook necessarily shared by everyone, particularly those 
in state government who hold the purse strings.

Next year DARE programs in Massachusetts - which involved an estimated 
240,000 students across the state this year - could become a thing of the past.

In January, acting Gov. Jane Swift axed the $4.3 million DARE budget from 
her fiscal 2003 state budget proposal of about $220 billion. It was one of 
the smaller cuts - including cuts to anti-smoking efforts, charter school 
student reimbursements and aid to towns for public works projects - to 
close a projected $2 billion budget shortfall.

Around the state, legislators are warning DARE supporters not to be too 
optimistic about funding in light of the looming state budget crisis.

"There is nothing concrete - not yet anyway - but a lot of programs are 
likely to be cut," said Michael Karath, aide to state Rep. Demetrius 
Atsalis, D-Hyannis.

"The House is just starting to put a budget together and we expect there 
will be a lot of programs knocking on the door asking not to be cut," 
Karath said.

"Who would want to cut a program like this? DARE has been very popular 
among Cape schools," he said. "But we won't know what will happen until 
discussions get underway."

Karath noted that funding for community policing grants - used by many 
municipal departments to fund police-school programs other than DARE - 
could also be at risk this year. Some Cape departments use community 
policing grants to put officers in high schools and elementary schools.

Cape police chiefs are saying now they hope the Legislature will see fit to 
fund DARE. If that does not happen, "this might be our last DARE 
graduation," Yarmouth Chief Peter Carnes said Friday at the Mattacheese 
Middle School.

Broader use and scope

Despite its possible expendability on Beacon Hill, the program's widespread 
popularity among schools, police, parents and students is undeniable.

DARE, the acronym stands for Drug Awareness Resistance Education, was begun 
in 1983 as an anti-drug program in California.

Since then, the program has changed "to reflect the changing concerns of 
our communities," said Ralph Lochridge spokesman for DARE-America, the 
national organization that oversees training and curriculum development.

"There continues to be an anti-drug component in the curriculum, but we've 
broadened the program to address issues like tobacco use, violence, gun 
safety, domestic violence, gang involvement and date rape - whatever is 
most appropriate for a particular community," he said.

DARE has spread to 54 countries and involves 36 million children worldwide. 
The program is used in 80 percent of public schools in this country, and in 
every school district on the Cape and islands. From the start, the program 
has involved bringing police officers into classrooms to teach students.

DARE offers a curriculum used by police officers to teach a variety of 
subjects, aimed at increasing self-esteem, self awareness and negotiating 
skills. Students engage in role playing, create skits, and write essays and 
reports.

Professional curriculum writers map out the activities, in concert with 
educators and police officers, according to Lochridge.

Cuts jeopardize programs

Across the country, DARE programs are funded in a variety of ways including 
public and private grants.

In Massachusetts, DARE is funded through grants from the state Executive 
Office of Public Safety. Money is disbursed to police departments through 
the Governor's Alliance Against Drugs.

Cape and islands police departments received a total of $148,256 in DARE 
grants for the current year. These ranged from the $155 given to Truro, to 
the $15,000 given to larger towns such as Falmouth.

How the money is used varies by police department. Yarmouth, for example, 
got a $9,700 grant and uses the money to pay for other officers to fill in 
shifts when Officer Richard White is teaching three days a week at the 
Mattacheese Middle School.

Sandwich got a $15,000 grant that is used to assign Officer Brian Bondarek 
full-time to Sandwich schools.

Bondarek, whose enthusiasm for working with children appears boundless, 
said discussions about "how to say no to drugs, and how to cope with peer 
pressure are certainly part of our program" in Sandwich fifth-grades.

But, he added, "I try to be flexible, I try to take advantage of those 
teachable moments. This year for example, the topic of divorce came up 
because several kids had parents going through that. So we dealt with that 
by talking about differences between people and how we cope with our feelings."

Another time, cancer became the subject of discussion when fifth- graders 
learned that Bondarek's daughter had just successfully finished treatments 
for cancer. This, along with the knowledge that "there are high cancer 
rates in our community was something that had the kids worried," he said.

"It was one of those 'teachable moments' - and maybe the kids had more to 
teach me about their worlds at that moment than I had to teach them," he said.

"When I was growing up in Sandwich, my television had three channels, 
theirs have 300. We didn't have cellphones. We didn't hear about high 
cancer rates. It's a different world for this generation," he said.

"DARE is one part of our overall school program," said Sandwich Chief 
Michael Miller, who worries about what will happen if his department loses 
DARE funding.

"We definitely want to continue having police work with the schools and in 
the classroom, but I just don't know at this point what we would 
specifically do with our fifth-grade program, now a DARE position," he said.

DARE pays for Bondarek to work with fifth-graders regularly, although he 
does visit periodically with first- and third-grade classes, as part of the 
DARE program.

Sandwich also assigns a school resource officer to the high school, paid 
for out of the department's general budget.

"This is a program that has generated tremendous parent support and is 
considered a real resource for the school system," Miller said of his 
department's focus on placing officers in schools.

Joanne Sykes, who teaches health to seventh- and eighth-graders in Sandwich 
agrees. "DARE is much more than an anti-drug program.

"It is far more encompassing than that - in the '80s and '90s, the program 
was adjusted to include discussion and means of coping with violence. Then 
came the issue of bullying," she said. "What I have seen come into the 
classroom more recently is a discussion of tolerance and diversity - all 
because of the DARE program."

Sykes said it adds to a student's experience to participate in discussions 
and hear perspectives "from a professional other than a teacher."

She adds, that bringing someone other than a teacher into the classroom 
also "takes the pressure off for students. They are not being graded. It is 
something different for them. Even if I were to say, 'You're not going to 
get a grade on this.' I'm still the teacher."

Debating the benefits

Sykes is disturbed by what she perceives as yet another cut in education 
programs - "that's what it is, if the DARE program is not funded. I don't 
see any proposals that suggest using the DARE money for other educational 
programs. So how does cutting it help?"

She is aware of recent studies critical of DARE, which claim the program 
has done little to prevent drug use in older students.

Last year a report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse 
stated that 61 percent of the nation's high school students said drugs were 
kept in or used at their schools. The same report concluded that DARE was 
having very little extended impact on students.

Sykes points out that these studies "are narrowly focused on substance 
abuse and DARE has much broader range than that. If anything, those studies 
point to a need to have something for the upper grades in the way of 
programs or support for students. "

Yarmouth's Chief Carnes responds to the critical studies by noting, "There 
is no way to realistically measure how many students chose not to use drugs."

Lochridge said his 25 years of working, first as a federal drug 
investigator and then for DARE, "leads me to conclude that 10 percent of 
kids are probably going to use drugs, no matter what we do for them. 
Another 10 percent will never use drugs regardless of what they hear in 
school. It is that 80 percent in the middle you want to reach."

Parents of students who have gone through DARE programs react similarly.

One Sandwich mother noted, "Banks see a lot of checks bounced. Does that 
mean they should stop teaching math in school?"

Mari Sennott, another mother from Sandwich, is a strong supporter of the 
program after seeing how much her daughter Meaghan enjoyed it.

In January when Meaghan and her friends learned of Swift's proposal to cut 
funding, they began a petition drive, gathering signatures from fellow 
students at the Wing School in Sandwich, from adults in their neighborhoods 
and finally from Sandwich selectmen. It might have helped that Meaghan's 
father is Selectman Hank Sennott, said his wife with a laugh. The petitions 
have been sent to the governor's office.

What did not escape the parents in this case is that their daughter got a 
lesson in civics.

"They saw something they didn't like about how the government is working 
and they decided to change it," said Sennott.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens