ROCKWOOD SCHOOLS GETTING RID OF D.A.R.E.

Studies Questioning Anti-Drug Program's Effectiveness Played Role In
Decision.

The Rockwood School District is doing away with D.A.R.E. -- swayed in
part by questions about the program's effectiveness -- drawing
complaints from some parents and police.

"The timing stinks," said Eureka Police Chief Michael Wiegand. "We've
got a large problem with heroin in west St. Louis County."

But D.A.R.E. -- Drug Abuse Resistance Education, the nation's best
known anti-drug program -- has come under attack in recent years after
several studies showed students in the program are no less likely to
use drugs, cigarettes or alcohol.

Jill Ramsey, Rockwood's interim executive director of public schools,
said the statistics challenging D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness played a role
in the decision to eliminate it.

Ramsey said one of the key benefits of the program is officers'
interaction with students, something the district intends to continue
in a new curriculum.

"We understand the disappointment," Ramsey said. "But I hope a year
from now, everybody says, 'Wow, this is better.'"

The Rockwood School District is at least the second in St. Louis
County to eliminate the program in recent years. The Parkway School
District got rid of D.A.R.E. in 2008.

At least seven police departments offer D.A.R.E. programs to
Rockwood's 19 elementary schools.

"It is our position that D.A.R.E. offers us opportunities for
interactions with students that cannot be duplicated with other
programs," St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch wrote to the district.

Rockwood says it will incorporate drug education into an expanded
health curriculum that reaches elementary school students in all grades.

D.A.R.E. provides a 10-week course for children in fifth grade. Police
departments provide D.A.R.E. officers to schools at no cost and often
pay for books and T-shirts.

Part of the tension between Rockwood and police may be due to how the
district informed the departments that it was cutting the program.

Eureka police have taught D.A.R.E. in Rockwood for decades. But last
year, when the district began talking about eliminating D.A.R.E., the
department wasn't invited to participate, Wiegand said.

There also appears to be disagreement about what prompted Rockwood to
re-evaulate its drug education programs.

Kim Cranston, spokeswoman for the district, said talk of cutting the
program started partly because Chesterfield police informed the
district last year that it would no longer provide a D.A.R.E. officer.
Chesterfield police Lt. Steve Lewis said that wasn't the case.

The department brought up the issue with Rockwood, Lewis said, because
it heard Rockwood was already thinking about getting rid of D.A.R.E.
The department needed to know whether the district was going to
eliminate the program so it could decide how to assign its officers.

Maureen Wuelling, who has four children in the district, came to a
School Board meeting Thursday night to try to persuade the district to
keep the program. D.A.R.E has helped start conversations in her family
about drug abuse, she said.

"It instills values that last a lifetime," she said.