Pubdate: Thu, 08 Sep 2005
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Section: Pg LZ13
Copyright: 2005 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Nikita Stewart
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

VA. SCHOOLS CHANGE COURSE IN ANTI-DRUG EDUCATION

Loudoun County and the cities of Falls Church and Manassas Park are the 
only jurisdictions in Northern Virginia that still offer the DARE program, 
after the Prince William County Police Department replaced the national 
initiative to dissuade students from using drugs and alcohol with its own 
curriculum.

County police found that DARE, which stands for Drug and Alcohol Resistance 
Education, has an inflexible curriculum and no longer works with Prince 
William's changing demographics, said County Executive Craig S. Gerhart.

What worked in 1987, when the county adopted the DARE program, does not fit 
with the proliferation of gangs and Internet crimes in recent years, he said.

Other communities across the region and country also have shelved DARE, 
which was deemed ineffective in a 2003 report by the General Accounting 
Office. The federal agency found that substance abuse did not differ 
between students who were exposed to DARE in the fifth or sixth grades and 
those who were not.

In Prince William, teachers seemed put off by DARE's restrictive 10-week 
program, which targets fifth-graders, Gerhart said. Just a little more than 
half of the county's elementary schools were participating, he said.

Although DARE America, the national nonprofit organization, has created a 
new curriculum, the Prince William Police Department decided to go with its 
new program, Basic Elementary Addiction, Wellness & Abuse Resource 
Education (BE AWARE).

The BE AWARE curriculum will begin this school year; 26 police officers 
already trained to teach students DARE will take the program into schools.

The curriculum -- which includes gang awareness, Internet safety, conflict 
management, bullying prevention, stealing and drug and alcohol abstinence 
- -- will be taught in kindergarten to fifth grade.

Gerhart said the program will not be limited to 10-week instruction as DARE 
is. "It's designed to be much more flexible," he said. "This is a 10-module 
program."

Police officers, principals and teachers will be able to tailor the program 
to individual schools that deal with different issues based on the 
community, according to a report by Deane.

"During the 2004-2005 year, the demographics of one elementary school was 
63 percent Hispanic. The needs of this school are drastically different 
than those of another elementary school with different demographics," Deane 
wrote in his report.

Senior Trooper Gene Ayers of the Virginia State Police, the state DARE 
coordinator, said he was disappointed to lose another Northern Virginia 
participant. "Several jurisdictions in Northern Virginia have pulled out," 
he said.

Across Virginia, DARE is taught in 105 out of 134 school districts, Ayers said.

"DARE is still the most widely used prevention program in the world," he 
said. "I'm still convinced it's the best prevention program in the market."

Ayers said the GAO report was unfair because it was based on surveys from 1994.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman