ST. CHARLES SCHOOLS RETHINKING DARE

Add the St. Charles school district to the growing list of groups
questioning the effectiveness of DARE.

Administrators recently announced a plan to form a committee to study the
Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and alternative anti-drug programs.

Taught by uniformed police officers in 80 percent of U.S. school districts,
DARE has come under sharp criticism in the past decade. Several university
studies and a recent analysis by the federal General Accounting Office
concluded that DARE had no significant long-term effect on preventing young
people from using drugs.

Its value has been debated among Kane County Board members considering a
request for $15,000 to fund the program at six schools.

Now, St. Charles school officials want to determine whether the district
should continue to fund the program past this school year.

"We must ask ourselves why we would continue to support a program that
several top agencies ... have thoroughly researched and no longer support
due to its lack of success," Melanie Raczkiewicz, assistant superintendent
for elementary education, wrote in a letter to the school board.

Officials with the DARE America program defend it, as do many police
officers who teach it, saying the program gives children tools to know how
and why to say no to drugs and peer pressure. And DARE curriculum has been
revised in the wake of critical studies, using in some cases more realistic
scenarios that some studies suggest are more persuasive.

The St. Charles school board recently agreed unanimously to spend $50,000
on the program for the current school year. The City of St. Charles
contributes an additional $50,000 annually, and the municipalities of South
Elgin and West Chicago fund DARE at the two district elementary schools
within their borders.

The Kane County Sheriff's Department also provides funding for the program,
but the county board's executive committee recently voted against
allocating the money this year.

A committee of St. Charles school administrators, teachers, school board
members and parents will study the issue and make a recommendation to the
board in late January or early February, Raczkiewicz said.

"If we're going to spend money, we want to make sure we're giving kids the
most effective program to deal with the temptations of drug use and abuse,"
district spokesman Tom Hernandez said.

The $50,000 the district spends on DARE constitutes 57 percent of the
entire elementary education cost center budget, which Raczkiewicz said "can
no longer absorb these costs."

DARE is taught to fifth-graders during 17 hours of classroom instruction.
School board member Chris Hansen said the program should either be expanded
or dropped.

"I'd say the future for it probably is not that good," Hansen said.

Kathy Hewell, another board member, said she would like district staff to
consider developing a different anti-drug program specifically targeted to
St. Charles students.

"I think our curriculum department can come up with a better program than
what's out there," she said.

The school board considered dropping DARE during last year's budget
discussions but ultimately decided to keep the program.

The district's overall anti-drug program consists of DARE in elementary
schools, "Project Alert" in middle schools and a portion of the health
curriculum in high school.

Taught by district teachers, Project Alert is a three-week program that
uses activities and videos to help motivate children against drug use. It
was recognized as exemplary by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Batavia Police Department funds DARE at the six elementary schools in
the Batavia school district. Officials there have not discussed dropping
the program, said Jan Wright, superintendent for curriculum.

"It's a program that's been valued both by parents and by teachers," Wright
said. "We plan on continuing it."

DARE has not been taught to fifth-graders in the Kaneland school district
since 1997, when the fifth grade was moved from the elementary to the
middle school building.

DARE: Board considered dropping program last year