SOME SCHOOLS DROPPING DARE PROGRAM

Drug Abuse Resistance Education has been taught in many Barron County
schools since the 1980s, but funding concerns are forcing a number of
school districts to reconsider offering the fifth-grade program.

Karen Chilson, an educational consultant at CESA 11, said many schools have
stopped using DARE to teach drug and alcohol prevention, even though the
programs is popular with many parents, teachers and students. The problem
is that requirements for obtaining federal aid for these prevention classes
have "become much more stringent" in recent years.

In particular, there is increasing pressure that these programs funded by
federal dollars must have scientific evidence showing that the classes
effectively reduce or delay the onset of drug and alcohol use, Chilson
said. Proof of changed behaviors and retained knowledge about drugs is also
strongly encouraged.

Studies that have focused on the DARE program have been unable to meet
those goals, Chilson said, but similar prevention courses have made the
grade. Project Northland (a Hazelden-produced curriculum) and Project Alert
(from the Best Foundation) are just two drug and alcohol programs that have
scientific evidence backing up their methods.

Cumberland opted out of DARE after the No Child Left Behind Act was
reauthorized because the law required all school programs to have research
proving their effectiveness over time, said Cumberland School District
curriculum coordinator Sandra Schmandt. DARE didn't have the necessary
studies to back it up, so the school district chose Project Alert.

Cumberland's new program differs from DARE in a few ways, she said. The
class is taught by regular teaching staff (who receive specialized training
for Project Alert), rather than by a police officer. It is less expensive
for the school to offer, and it is taught throughout the school year,
rather than once a week for a few weeks' time.

Project Alert gets teachers much more involved with the drug awareness
course's content, Schmandt said. Teachers know exactly what is being taught
in this prevention class at any given time, since they're the ones giving
the instruction, and so it's easier for them to refer to the drug awareness
content, while covering other subject areas, too. The material is broken up
into flexible units, making it relatively easy to integrate with teachers'
lesson plans.

Although DARE seemed most effective only in the first few years after
students had the class, many in the academic world might have stuck it out
with DARE if the strings tied to federal funds hadn't forced the issue,
Schmandt said.

Many of those same sentiments were echoed by Chetek's middle school AODA
coordinator, Jessica Zeman. She cited the lack of conclusive research, the
requirements for securing federal funding and the limited scope (10 weeks)
of the DARE program as reasons why their school district won't be
participating in DARE this fall. Instead, Chetek is crafting a new
"learning communities curriculum" that will incorporate similar drug
prevention material that can be taught by school staff. Chetek applied for
and received a $50,000 grant to help them create the new curriculum.

Zeman said Chetek's decision to change its drug education program wasn't a
reflection on who was teaching the original materials.

Sheree Carr, programs director at the county jail, has been teaching DARE
throughout Barron County, since local schools picked up on the program
almost 17 years ago. She said she and other DARE officers take the DARE
program very seriously. These instructors from the law enforcement
community have been known to pass up promotions and pay raises just to keep
teaching kids about the dangers of drugs.

"I have a full-time job here at the jail, but I would be heartbroken if the
program was dropped," said Carr regarding the DARE programs she has been
teaching. Many schools have yet to indicate their plans for this fall, but
Barron, Chetek, Cameron, New Auburn, Prairie Farm, Turtle Lake and two Rice
Lake schools were onboard last year.

Schools share the financial burden of DARE with the county, Carr said. The
schools pay half of DARE's instructional fee and the county pays the other
half of the fee. Additional costs (e.g. workbooks, T-shirts and stickers)
are picked up by donations from United Way, Lions Club and others.

The instructional fee varies depending on a class' size, how often it meets
and its distance from the Justice Center, she said. A school the size of
Cameron could expect to pay a little more than $800 per year for DARE,
including mileage and prep time. Prairie Farm's class costs less than $500,
and under $2,000 covers the entire Rice Lake district.

Although she stands by DARE, the program's effectiveness is admittedly
difficult to measure, Carr said. The hard part is proving that DARE was the
reason why a child didn't get started on drugs.

Besides drug education, Carr said the DARE program offers law enforcement
an avenue into the classroom to give kids a "positive contact" with
officers. By interacting with children at an early age in an educational
environment, those same kids, as they mature, might be less fearful of
speaking to authorities.

At the Law Enforcement/Emergency Management Committee's July meeting, the
issue of shrinking support for DARE came up.

Supervisor Nicole Greschner said she found the discussion particularly
interesting because her youngest child has recently completed the program.

"It's kind of funny to hear from an 11-year-old saying that he just didn't
feel that it made enough sense for today," she said. "It was good when it
started. It dealt with the issues that were out there, but he really didn't
think that it pertained to what was going on today in the schools and with
kids and the problems.

"He's 11 and he knows there's a meth problems here. He's heard it through
the schools and at home and on TV."

Greschner's 11-year-old told her that he didn't think that not having drug
education would have made a difference for him, she said. Her older son had
similar feelings about DARE.

"So I don't know if we're just spending money that isn't addressing the
real issues," Greschner said.

Richie said that was also a concern of his because children today are much
different than what children were like when DARE started.

"Look at your 15, 16-year-old kids in school today," he said. "(They) are
drastically different than 15-year-olds 15 years ago. Just the interests
are different, the attitudes, the behaviors, the conduct-completely different."

Richie said if his department, which offers the DARE program, didn't have
"100 percent cooperation" with local school districts, then he'd prefer to
not offer it.

"Last year Cumberland dropped it; Chetek's dropping it now," Richie said.
"If Rice Lake drops it, we don't have much of a program. It doesn't make
sense. I would rather see our DARE officer working on our inmate programs
fulltime."

The county's inmate programs led to 166 people earning their GED last year,
Richie said. A feat he described as "amazing."

Although the vehicle for drug resistance education might be debated, the
need for some sort of prevention program was not questioned. Greschner, at
the committee meeting, and Schmandt, during a subsequent interview, both
said Barron County has a high level of drug use, and it's a problem that
needs to be addressed.