SCHOOL DISTRICT DROPS OUT OF DARE

PETALUMA - Petaluma is beginning to go through DARE withdrawal as one
school district canceled the drug prevention program and the Police
Department is considering cutting it as well.

Police Chief Pat Parks said DARE is one of several programs being
re-evaluated after he was asked to cut 10 percent from his $10.9 million
budget.

Budget constraints also were cited by the Old Adobe School District, which
has decided to drop the program.

At the same time, however, Petaluma will become the third Sonoma County
city to station police officers at public schools.

The Petaluma City School District and the Police Department received a
$300,000 grant that would cover the cost of an officer for two high schools
and two junior highs for three years.

Petaluma schools have participated in the DARE program for 13 years and
police, educators, parents and students praise it for the friendly
relationships it helps to build between kids and cops.

But it costs the city about $140,000 a year and takes two patrol officers
off the street during the school year, Parks said.

Some academic studies have challenged its effectiveness and the national
DARE organization is revising its curriculum.

"The benefits in the community-building arena are probably more than the
drug prevention end of it," Parks said. "Whether this is the only venue
this can take place in is something we want to sort through."

Because of questions about the effectiveness of DARE, the state directed
school districts to stop spending federal and state drug prevention
education dollars on the just-say-no program.

Over the protests of parents and students, the Old Adobe Union School Board
voted March 8 to eliminate funding for the program as it slashed
approximately $535,000 from its $13 million general fund to erase a deficit.

The school district plans to use some of the $16,000 it spent on DARE to
pay for police officers on campus, who will visit classrooms but won't
teach the drug program.

"That way we would still get that very special benefit from the police that
we had with DARE," said Pat Raney, Old Adobe director of curriculum and
instruction, referring to the police-student bonding.

Petaluma City Schools already announced it will finance DARE without using
state or federal money for another year while researching alternative programs.

In the meantime, it will join Santa Rosa and Windsor in having police on
campus.

Superintendent Carl Wong said the officer would provide education and
career mentoring as well as law enforcement.

"That whole concept of community policing in practice is what you see,"
Wong said. "Students and parents viewing law enforcement as not only police
officers but members of the community."