Pubdate: Tue, 21 Sep 2004
Source: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, The (IA)
Copyright: 2004 The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/3510
Website: http://www.wcfcourier.com/
Author: Andrew Wind
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

DARE PROGRAM REPLACED WITH NEW ONE

WATERLOO --- Waterloo middle schools are replacing the DARE program with 
another anti-drug curriculum, but officials stress that police officers 
will not be left out of the classroom.

Local police departments' school resource officers have always taken the 
lead in teaching the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. As Waterloo 
Community Schools switches to LifeSkills Training this year, the officers 
will continue teaching in collaboration with others.

Debbie Lee, the district's secondary curriculum coordinator, told the Board 
of Education last week that when administrators began looking at plans to 
replace DARE two years ago the officers said they would teach any 
curriculum chosen.

Officials wanted to maintain police involvement because it is important for 
officers to "create relationships with students," she said. "It's 
significant that they know these students and they can go out into the 
community and call them by name."

School resource officers will share the classroom duties with science 
teachers and guidance counselors. The collaborative approach takes into 
account the officers' time limits.

LifeSkills Training teaches personal, social and drug resistance skills. 
Like DARE, its goal is to prevent tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse among 
adolescents. However, Lee said the program has a much more extensive 
research base than DARE.

Logan Middle School is in its third year implementing LifeSkills through a 
grant from Pathways Behavioral Services. For the first two years, DARE ran 
alongside LifeSkills as it was taught to sixth-graders and then 
seventh-graders. This year, eighth-graders are being added, and DARE is 
being dropped.

"We are now ready to say that we do not need DARE," said Lee. "LifeSkills 
is a far more comprehensive approach."

Bunger and Central middle schools are just starting a three-year Pathways 
grant implementing LifeSkills. The curriculum is being put in place at 
Hoover Middle School through district personnel and resources. Each school 
is starting with a sixth-grade program and expanding to the other two 
grades next year.

Lee said LifeSkills will be taught during science classes and be "embedded" 
into the curriculum. She said officials also are talking about eventually 
starting the program in elementary schools and taking it through ninth grade.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D