S.L. CITY TEACHERS, NOT POLICE, TO INSTRUCT ANTI-DRUG COURSES

Mayor Rocky Anderson may have KO'd funding for DARE, but that will not mean
the end of drug prevention education in Salt Lake City schools.

The city's school district will likely beef up an existing drug prevention
program officials say could prove more effective than DARE, a national
program taught by police officers.

Called Prevention Dimensions, the anti-drug and alcohol program is already
used by some Utah teachers. During tonight's school board meeting, Shannon
Andersen, coordinator of the district's safe schools programs, will suggest
school board members focus the drug fight on Prevention Dimensions in all
fifth-grade classes.

"Research shows that it's the teachers that need to be delivering the drug
education message. . . . Not outsiders," said Andersen.

Under Prevention Dimensions, teachers are in charge of drug education. They
provide information about drugs and teach students to be proud about being
drug-free. The curriculum, developed in the 1980s, is based on teaching
students to be responsible, contributing community members -- which
requires them to avoid drug use. It also emphasizes values such as honesty,
goal setting and self-discipline.

The anti-drug message is meant to be incorporated in several classes, not
just health. For example, a math teacher could discuss the costs of drugs
to society.

If the Salt Lake City School District decides to expand use of Prevention
Dimensions, there is no time to train fifth-grade teachers to use the
program before school starts, Andersen said. Instead, they would have to
take classes throughout the upcoming school year using district money.

The school board was forced to scrap DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)
after the mayor pulled the program's funding this month.

Since 1988, the city has spent $289,000 annually to pay for DARE police
officers, who taught the city's fifth-graders about the dangers of drugs.

Citing national research that shows DARE either doesn't stop kids from
using drugs or increases drug use, the mayor said the program was a waste
of money. He also has said there isn't adequate proof that Prevention
Dimensions works either.

Anderson, who plans to speak at the school board meeting, believes the
district should use a program that has been tested over time. In
particular, he likes two programs, "Students Taught Awareness and
Resistance" and "Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids."

However, in a July 3 letter to Anderson, Verne Larsen, a specialist on safe
and drug-free schools for the state Office of Education, defended
Prevention Dimensions. He said the state plans to rigorously test
Prevention Dimensions' effectiveness. Larsen also noted that the program
was rewritten in 1992 to incorporate elements from Life Skills Training, a
program Anderson has said he likes.

The Life Skills program was developed by a Cornell University professor and
has cut tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use up to 75 percent, according to
its Web site.

Salt Lake City School District's Andersen said the mayor's concerns about
DARE aren't surprising; she had read the research, too.

Still, "there were some really good things about DARE," she said. "The
positive role model of the police officers -- that's one of the things
we're really going to miss."