DARE PROGRAM WILL RETURN TO SCHOOLS IN MOUNT WASHINGTON

Anti-Drug Effort Had Been Halted Because Of Costs

Mount Washington Mayor Frank Sullivan has reinstated a popular
drug-prevention program in three elementary schools.

Sullivan suspended the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, program
and a course to teach middle school students to resist gangs last spring,
saying the city's police department did not have the personnel to move an
officer from the streets to classrooms.

Under the new arrangement, DARE Officer Rodney Hockenbury will spend a few
hours a day in schools and then return to regular patrol. Sullivan did not
reinstate the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program, called GREAT,
and he said Monday that he does not plan to.

School administrators and parents praised the mayor's decision, saying
education is key in deterring drug use, smoking, drinking and bad behavior.

"I think the program really helps our kids," said Pleasant Grove Elementary
principal Joe Reister. "I know once the kids get to middle school, they
still talk about the experience they had with the DARE program. It's smart
to start at a young age and then carry those values on into middle school."

Sullivan said the city spends about $40,000 a year to coordinate the DARE
and GREAT programs, and he would like the schools to help offset the cost.
The GREAT program, which is taught to seventh-graders during a 13-week
course, will not return unless the schools offer to help finance it,
Sullivan said. He cited an arrangement in Grayson County, where the school
board funds a contract with Kentucky State Police to provide DARE.

Sullivan announced his decision at last week's Mount Washington City
Council meeting, a day before a group of parents and educators planned to
meet to discuss how to pressure the city to restore the programs.

Pat Smith-Darnell, director of the school district's safe and drug-free
schools program, mailed a letter to the parents of Mount Washington Middle
School and the city's three elementary schools - Pleasant Grove, Old Mill
and Mount Washington Elementary - informing them of the meeting. Alice
Harris, a former City Council member who has four daughters in Mount
Washington schools, led the effort.

Because DARE was being reinstated, Harris said, the group of about 30
parents who attended the meeting mostly discussed how to persuade the city
to reinstate the GREAT program. Those ideas included writing letters to
council members and attending council meetings until the program is brought
back.

Hockenbury likely will begin teaching the DARE course at Mount Washington
elementary schools in January or February. The police department can
provide the program because Hockenbury will return to patrol after he
leaves the schools, Sullivan said.

Nationwide, some people have criticized DARE for several years, saying the
program wastes money and fails to keep children away from drugs and alcohol.

But since it was founded by Los Angeles police officers in 1983, more than
50,000 officers have been trained to teach it.

Over the past few years, the Mount Washington DARE and GREAT officer made
the program a full-time job, which sometimes left the department with just
one officer on patrol.

Sullivan was criticized last spring when he announced the suspension of the
programs. Many letters from middle school students arrived at his office,
most of them saying what the programs had meant to them and asking him to
bring them back.

Mount Washington Middle School principal Bonita Franklin, a strong
proponent of the program, praised Sullivan's decision. But she is concerned
about what will happen to her students if there is no GREAT program.

Already this year, Franklin said, the school has had more detentions and
suspensions. She said the relationship that students made with the DARE
officer in fifth grade would carry over into the GREAT program in middle
school.

"It's more than just the material, it's the fact that there's a community
officer coming that the students are relating to and bonding with,"
Franklin said. "That's what is priceless. I'm sad that we won't have the
GREAT program back, but I'm happy that at least we'll be getting
sixth-graders that have DARE under their belts."