IT'S A GREAT WAY TO DETER STUDENTS FROM JOINING GANGS

No doubt about it, GREAT is an appropriate acronym for a great
program.

It stands for Gang Resistance Education and Training, a program
already tried with success in the Toppenish School District and now
headed for Yakima.

It's premise is simple, but effective: Get to students at a young
age, when they can be approached and taught the dangers and pitfalls
of gang activity and before they become dropout statistics.

As reported earlier, the program was first developed by the Phoenix
Police Department in the early 1990s and it was later picked up by
the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and
offered to schools across the country.

Toppenish is presently the only Yakima County school district with a
GREAT program and has used a federal grant to run dozens of
elementary students through the seminar in the past two years.

Police and school officials in Yakima should know by this spring
whether they will receive a federal grant to help pay for officers to
teach the course. If not, they expect to proceed anyway. That's the
kind of pursuit of a proven good thing we like to see.

During the third, fourth and fifth grades, the kids are still very
approachable, reserve Officer Jo Miles, a former reserve officer in
Mountlake Terrace and the retired public works director for
Toppenish, told our reporter.

"We're trying to reach them before they get too involved in criminal
activity," said Miles. "They're bright-eyed and open-minded right
now, so it's a good time to open up a dialogue with them."

Indeed it is. Dialogue and education about the downside of gangs and
drugs go hand in hand and the younger it starts, the better. The
GREAT program is something of an offshoot of the Drug Resistance And
Education, or DARE, program. Together they can have an impact in an
era when drugs are more readily available and very dangerous. The
consequences of meth use, for example, are extreme and the idea is
for young people to be aware that even one-time experimentation is
dangerous in dealing with a very addictive drug.

Better the kids learn about drugs and gangs in these kinds of
programs than on the street.

Those involved in programs such as GREAT and DARE readily admit that
by themselves they will not solve either drug or gang problems. But
they offer solid educational starts that can be supplemented by other
needed community resources. Toppenish, for example, has Safe Haven,
which offers after-school activities for youngsters.

Keep the young people constructively busy and they have less time to
get in trouble.

We hope other school districts are paying attention to what has
happened in Toppenish and what will be coming soon to the Yakima
School District. Community problems warrant community responses and
GREAT offers an excellent model of one very promising option.