DARE PROGRAM TO WRAP UP FOR 165 ELEM. STUDENTS

A total of 165 students from Haig, Souris, Assiniboia Park, St. Dominic and
Queen Elizabeth elementary schools will take the DARE pledge to stay off
drugs when they graduate.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program was taught for a 10-week
period, and the students will graduate from the course on Tuesday, June 6,
with ceremonies starting at 4 p.m. in the Weyburn Comp Cafetorium.

Also as part of the ceremonies, selected students will read essays about
what they have learned through the DARE program.

Under the direction of specially-trained police officers with the Weyburn
Police Service, instructors Const. Melinda Mintenko and Const. Caroline
Chartrand, the students have learned the skills they need to avoid drugs,
alcohol and violence.

The classes included extensive role-playing with officers on practical ways
to resist pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol, and join gangs.

The DARE lessons focus on four major areas: providing accurate information
about alcohol and drugs; teaching students decision-making skills; showing
them how to resist peer pressure and giving them ideas for alternatives to
drug use and violence.

The program began in 1983, and is now taught in more than 300,000
classrooms in 50 states and 53 countries around the world. It was adopted
in Weyburn schools in September of 2000 as a joint effort of the Weyburn
school divisions and the Weyburn Police Service.