SHAWNEE MISSION GETS DRUG PREVENTION GRANT

Shawnee Mission School District Is Not Daring Students To Say No To Drugs

With the help of a $99,863 renewable grant the district is teaching
students how to say no.

The federal government issued the Drug-Free Communities Program grant
to Johnson County's Regional Prevention Center for use in the Shawnee
Mission School District. Shawnee Mission is one of 176 districts to
receive the grant.

The district will use the money to implement Project Alert in
seventh-grade classrooms.

Project Alert is a tested, effective drug prevention curriculum, said
Janine Gracy, regional prevention center director.

"They were a great grant candidate because we can really show a
difference once (Project Alert's) been implemented," Gracy said.

Gracy hired a full-time prevention coordinator to oversee the program.

Project Alert facilitators will train seventh-grade teachers from
Antioch and Trailridge middle schools in the spring and the schools
will pilot the program in the fall of 2006.

"(Project Alert) will provide us an opportunity to instruct students
in a different method," said Leigh Anne Neal, the district's director
of public information and communications.

The program teaches refusal skills, role modeling and goal setting, Gracy said.

Previous programs, such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education
(D.A.R.E.), taught students about drugs. Project Alert focuses on
ways to avoid drugs rather than information about drugs.

"It is not about holding up a bag of marijuana and saying 'this is
marijuana,'" Gracy said. "That is not what this curriculum is about."

Communities and families are included in Project Alert's curriculum.

"There is a portion of this curriculum where the kids will take a
work sheet home," Gracy said.

The program requires students to ask their parents about ways to
avoid drugs. Parents are encouraged to share their personal
experiences with their children.

"Parents need to be talking to their children about these issues
whether they are comfortable or not," Gracy said.

Gracy chose seventh-grade because peer influence is strong in that age group.

"We know as adolescents their No. 1 risk factor for the likelihood of
substance abuse are friends that use," Gracy said.

Implementing the program in seventh grade also allows the prevention
center to track the progress of students.

The grant is renewable for five years, totaling about $500,000.

Since teachers lead the curriculum, Project Alert can be sustained
when the grant money runs out, Gracy said.

"We've planned this program out knowing that we have to be able to
show sustainability in the future," she said.