D.A.R.E LOOKING TO FUTURE OFFICER TEACHING KIDS RESPONSIBILITY

"You have a right to say no. To anybody about anything."

Police officer Kris Holub strides around the Bonham Elementary sixth-grade
classroom in full police attire, complete with loaded gun and holster,
teaching basic, but vital, communication skills.

"Except your dad," said a sixth-grader.

"Well, you have a right to do it," said Holub. "Will there be consequences
if you say it at an inappropriate time?"

"Yes."

"No one can tell you that you can't say no. Don't let people take that right
away from you," Holub said.

She points to a list of rights and responsibilities written on the black
board.

"So what's your responsibility to everybody else? Accept no as an answer.
Your parents have a right to say no to you. Don't say 'Oh, please, oh,
please.' By begging, you're trying to take their rights away."

Holub is the only police officer teaching the city's D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse
Resistance Program) program, currently at three local elementary schools.
Students meet weekly for the 16-session course that begins with lessons
about drug use and misuse. But it branches into the kind of interpersonal
training - resistance techniques, assertiveness and managing stress - that
the average parent wants their kids to know, but rarely comes up in
conversation in busy homes.

With a friendly but in-charge teaching style, Holub reaches about 300
students a year, currently at Bonham, Alamo and Kate Burgess Elementary
Schools. The program is funded partly by the police department, which
provides Holub's salary and vehicle, and partly by the school district,
which provides about $5,000 for D.A.R.E. materials and incentives. The rest
comes from private donations.

"She teaches them how to be responsible to themselves and others," said
Julie Pennartz, Bonham Elementary's P.E. and Health teacher for 17 years.
"She also has a lot of fun with them. They like her."

Holub clearly likes the kids.

"When I first started, I'd go home crying. You just can't reach them all.
They either get it or they don't. But I reach as deeply as I can and let
them know I'm there for them. If they can find me in 20 years, I'm still
there for them," she said.

After 10 years in the police force, with three of those years devoted to
teaching the D.A.R.E program, Holub sees her mission as crucial to the
community.

"There are manpower shortages. You have to have (officers) out working
cases. But I protect our citizens for the future," Holub said.

Crockett's Coach Mark Schnuelle observed the program last year when it was
at Crockett and values it for the friendship it builds between the police
force and students.

"I was out eating with a police officer the other night. Some young people
came up to him and started (talking) with him," he said.

"Would that have happened if there hadn't been D.A.R.E. in their lives? When
I was growing up, the only time you were supposed to have contact with a
police officer was when you were in trouble. (The kids) ask questions like,
'What if you have a party and the police bust it and you run off, will they
get mad?' If they feel comfortable talking to that police officer, that
solves a lot of police work right there."

Schnuelle said he also likes the way D.A.R.E. is structured, with plenty of
role-playing opportunities.

"One way you learn to avoid situations is to actually have a mock situation.
You've gone through it before," he said.

"When it happens again, you don't react. You become proactive. I've heard
politicians say they want to make (budget) cuts and they want to cut this
program. But any time you can have the policeman in a situation working with
the youngsters at an early age, you're going to help some stay off drugs and
(out of) gangs. That's got to be positive."

Controversy erupted earlier in the year when a news release sent to D.A.R.E.
officers nationwide said the nation's largest substance-abuse prevention
program would be testing a new prevention curriculum in high schools because
the program's own studies suggested that it's methods weren't working. The
news release said the new program, funded by a $13.7 million grant from The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, targeted 80 high schools and 176 middle
schools, with about 50,000 students taking part.

Holub said she never received the news release, which was picked up by the
media during her fund-raising week and hampered money-raising efforts.

"We don't have a high school or middle school program in Wichita Falls,"
said Holub. "Nationwide, the high school program is a young program. It's
just 5 years old. It's evolving. It's got to evolve. I think it was not so
much that it was ineffective, just that there can be more."

Studies show that 14.3 percent more D.A.R.E. participants have low drug
involvement than students not acquainted with the program.

Holub knows her own program works, thanks to constant feedback from teachers
and the students themselves.

"Maybe you don't see it right now," said Pennartz. "But they get in junior
high, and they come back and tell us, 'I remember what they told us in
D.A.R.E. and we did it, and it works!"

Holub watched one sixth-grade boy appear to tune out all she taught about
practicing the techniques she taught in class. His home life was troubled,
and he got in so much trouble at school that his teachers were delighted to
have Holub walk through the door each week.

"I never thought he was listening," said Holub. "But I saw him in eighth
grade and he said, "I haven't been in ISS (In-School Suspension) the whole
time in junior high. I've been practicing!"

Holub learned that one of her 8-year-old students found a gun at his home
but did exactly what she'd trained him to do: don't touch it and go find his
parent.

"I learned not to drink beer and drive because you can cause a car accident
and die," wrote Cunningham student Robert Rodgers in an essay about what he
learned from the D.A.R.E. program. "And not to suck on an ink pen because
you can get ink poisoning. And not to sniff glue and markers because you
will lose brain cells."

In addition to presenting her full 16-week course, Holub also drops into any
class in town where she's needed and invited by a teacher. Bonham Elementary
Title 1 teacher Jeri Fouts eagerly scheduled Holub to come to her classroom
Thursday to befriend a few specific students and begin a non-threatening
teaching time.

"I think she is a valuable tool - she allows kids to come in touch with a
police officer in a friendly way," said Fouts, who then turns to Holub. "Let
them find out about you today. Answer their questions. Not a lecture. Just
get to be their friend. We may have a police officer in the making in
there!"