Pubdate: Sat, 11 Oct 2003
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
Copyright: 2003 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Laura Bauer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

SCHOOLS' ANTI-DRUG PROGRAMS TEAM UP, GAIN NEW FUND SOURCE

DARE Lessons Revamped, Paired With Life Skills

A plan to restructure the way fifth- and sixth-graders learn about drug 
prevention and life decisions is calming the fears some parents and school 
leaders had when city and county governments merged early this year.

They worried that Jefferson County Public Schools would lose the officers 
who teach classroom programs such as DARE and Life Skills. But under a new 
plan, partially funded this year by community groups, students will begin a 
four-year program about drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and self-image.

"My first thought is after the merger, we wouldn't get anything," said 
Bowen Elementary principal Steve Tyra, whose students in eastern Jefferson 
County had been in the Life Skills Training Program, an alternative to the 
controversial Drug Awareness Resistance Education, or DARE, program.

Throughout metro Louisville, fifth-graders will begin with DARE and then 
move on to three years of Life Skills courses which teach students how to 
deal with their decisions. School and police officials say the increased 
education will make better-rounded students who are more equipped to fight 
the pressure to use drugs or alcohol.

"The government and the school system are seeing everything together now," 
said Officer Paul Hixon, who is teaching DARE this year in more than a 
dozen elementary schools, including Bowen, and who taught Life Skills in 
the county before merger. "The county was doing one, the city doing another 
and the school system supported both. That's the rope everyone was tugging on.

"Now, everyone is focused on what do we need to do to get our kids ready," 
Hixon said. "Actually, this probably should have been done four years ago."

For several years DARE has been criticized by some who say the program 
wastes money and fails to persuade youths to stay away from drugs and 
alcohol. Jefferson County Police Chief William Carcara dropped DARE and 
introduced Life Skills at several county schools. The new program, which 
proponents say goes beyond "just saying no," quickly gained supporters.

By the end of the year, the Life Skills curriculum will be in every 
sixth-grade classroom, with seventh grade added next year and eighth grade 
the year after that. Police officers will instruct DARE - revamped in 
response to the criticism - and teachers are being trained in Life Skills. 
That program eventually will be paid by a federal grant the school system 
received for several programs.

Community groups are paying for the first year. The grant, which will pay 
for the program's $82,000 annual cost per grade, doesn't cover sixth grade.

The Smoke-Free Coalition donated $43,000 in tobacco settlement funds, Seven 
Counties Services gave $10,000 and the Delinquency Prevention Council 
donated more than $34,000. The $87,000 will pay for teachers and students' 
materials and for first-year training.

"This is truly a community effort," said Charlie Baker of the group Safe 
and Drug-Free Schools.

School officials, police commanders, parents and academic experts are 
applauding the effort to offer both courses.

"The more you repeat something, the sounder the learning and more 
long-term," said Deborah Wilson, chairwoman of the University of Louisville 
Justice Administration Department. She has studied the effectiveness of 
Life Skills. "You can't expect kids to learn about drugs and alcohol in the 
fifth grade and expect them to carry it through."

While only officers can teach DARE, teachers can instruct Life Skills. The 
police department approved DARE. Baker and others with Safe and Drug-Free 
Schools focused on earning a grant to provide Life Skills courses.

"It made sense to me to do DARE in elementary school and Life Skills in 
middle school," Baker said. "It's almost like students will be getting a 
double dose doing it this way."

Though Tyra said he would prefer to have Life Skills again at Bowen, he 
wasn't disappointed with the police decision to teach DARE at the 
elementary level.

"The conversation needs to be continued," Tyra said. "I can't deliver the 
message as well as an officer. The uniform makes a big difference."

That's why some are concerned that Life Skills won't be as effective if it 
is taught by a teacher. Parent Sylvia Thompson, whose son took Life Skills 
at Bowen last year as a fifth-grader, thinks having an officer involved is 
crucial.

"I hope that connection always stays there, that's mandatory," said 
Thompson, whose husband is a federal law-enforcement officer. "All the 
children get to develop a relationship with a law-enforcement officer, and 
it's not just what they get on the streets and on television."

The goal beginning this year is for officers to go into the classrooms 
occasionally and help teachers with the Life Skills curriculum.

Thompson said she became a believer in the course after her son Will was in 
it. "I was just blown away with how much he learned in Life Skills," said 
Thompson, an emergency room nurse. "He was asking us questions he had never 
asked us before."

Ciera Lewis, an eighth-grader at Brown School in downtown Louisville, took 
Life Skills at Fern Creek Elementary. Having the courses reinforced for 
three years will help students, she said.

"It will make them think," Lewis said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom