Law enforcement educates children on responsibility

One year ago, sheriff's deputy Julie Harris walked into Wal-Mart to
order a specially made cake for Sunnyside Elementary School students
who were graduating from TRACK - a law enforcement outreach program.

Harris asked the cake decorator to put a TRACK logo on top, and the
employee assured her it would be no problem. Harris had no reason to
be concerned; after all, the store had prepared a similar cake for her
before. But when Harris picked up the cake, instead of a TRACK logo,
it had a picture of a running track.

Instances like that have motivated Harris to do a better job educating
the public about TRACK - which stands for Teaching Responsibility and
Choices to Kids.

The TRACK program, started by the Durango Police Department and La
Plata County Sheriff's Office, replaced the DARE program about two
years ago in La Plata County schools. DARE - which stands for Drug
Abuse Resistance Education - is a good program, Harris said, but TRACK
is better suited for elementary school students in La Plata County.

DARE focuses mainly on drugs, which are a big deal in La Plata County,
Harris said, but not as big a deal as bullying. In order for
law-enforcement agencies to receive DARE funding, they are required to
follow a 16-week curriculum almost verbatim.

TRACK, funded mostly by local donations and a few grants, is an
eight-week program that teaches elementary students about making the
right choices in life and that making the wrong choices has
consequences, Harris said.

Lessons include:

"Introducing the concept of rights and responsibilities," which
teaches that all human beings have rights and that responsibilities go
with those rights.

"Gateway drugs," which provides students with basic alcohol and
drug fact information that help them understand the consequences of
using drugs.

"Pressures," which helps students understand how they can be
influenced by mass media (television, radio and the Internet), and
help them develop skills to recognize the positive and negative
influences they can have on how they think and act.

"Violence - bullying," which helps students recognize that
bullying and other destructive acts of violence are inappropriate ways
of dealing with anger and resolving disagreements.

Children also get to check out a Sheriff's Office car with flashy
graphics and writing. "The car is always the real neat eye-catcher for
the kids," Harris said.

There are two school resource officers covering seven schools - Harris
is one and Durango police officer Jeremiah Lee is the other. Harris
said she spends all day at a school and does four to eight classes a
day. She helps children arriving at school find their classes safely
and helps them leave safely at the end of the day.

TRACK is "proactive policing," said sheriff's Sgt. Doug Hanna, who
supervises the program and is a TRACK board member. It works to
prevent incidents from happening, rather than responding to events
after they happen.

"We're pretty excited about the program, because we truly feel that it
is making a difference," Hanna said. "Part of being successful is
making a difference in society - making a positive one rather than a
negative one - and I think the TRACK program is accomplishing that."

The TRACK program also issues identification cards to youngsters. The
cards can be carried by children and have the children's pictures on
them. The program has issued about 1,000 cards, Harris said.

"Those seem to be really popular with the parents," she said.