D.A.R.E. TO BE TERMINATED

BARABOO City officials must decide what to do with a position in the
Baraboo Police Department now that the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education Program, or D.A.R.E., will be officially terminated in July.

D.A.R.E. has been a joint effort between the Baraboo Police
Department and the Baraboo School District since 1993. The program is
no longer eligible for the federal Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse
grant, so school officials decided to drop it. They have to fill a
mandate for research-based drug education instead, School District
Administrator Lance Alwin said.

"Until just recently we were continuing to explore the possibility of
continuing to be involved," Alwin said, but they decided students
should not participate in both D.A.R.E. and a federally-approved
program because of time constraints and the possibility of duplicate
programming.

Alwin said administrators are working on an alternative for the next
school year.

After meeting with school officials, Baraboo Police Chief Dennis
Kluge said he will explore development of a new program that would
keep an officer in contact with students in a non-disciplinary role.

The Police School Liaison has her hands full with enforcement issues,
Kluge said, whereas the D.A.R.E. officer served as an educational
role model. He did not respond to patrol calls.

Opponents of D.A.R.E. say there is no research to support that it
actually reduces drug and alcohol use. But Kluge said the focus on
positive choices and the interaction with the officer had a positive effect.

"To say that removing the D.A.R.E. program is not going to have an
impact, it will," he said.

D.A.R.E. officer Nick Defiel spent four days a week in classrooms
teaching lessons on addiction and prevention. He hung out at recess
too, overseeing kickball games.

Working with the Defeil, the kids "get the feeling of what is
expected of them in the community, and respond to that positively," Kluge said.

It will take at least another year to start a new role-model program,
Kluge said.

Defiel has seniority within the department, so he will keep his job
and become a patrol officer. Finance Committee members will decide
whether to cut an empty or lowest-ranking patrol position instead to
make up for the lack of D.A.R.E. funding. Starting patrol officers
make $36,588 a year.

Kluge said he does not recommend cutting a position because the
department is understaffed.