DARE FACES HARD TRUTH - DRUG PROGRAM TO END

Bumper stickers proclaiming, "Proud parent of a DARE graduate" will soon be
scarce in the Medford School District.

After 10 years and nearly 10,000 kids, Project DARE, the nation's most
popular youth drug prevention program, will be dropped from the district
curriculum in June.

School board members formally axed the program this month, saving some
$70,000 a year toward a $2.4 million budget deficit.

Formally known as Drug Abuse Resistance Education, the program was set to
end in February.

But the Medford Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff's
Department agreed to share the $35,000 cost to finish the school year, said
Kathy McCollum, the district's director of elementary education.

That's it, though, said Medford Police Chief Eric Mellgren.

"We're not going to fund it," said Mellgren, who noted that the actual cost
of the program tops $110,000 a year. "We can't be all things to all people."

Instead, uniformed officers will be available on an occasional basis to
speak to school health classes. That's far different than the current DARE
curriculum, which sends an officer into classrooms an hour a week for 17
weeks. In Medford, the program reaches between 800 and 1,000 children a year.

Mellgren said he believes students still will receive appropriate anti-drug
information.

"I think alternatives will work just as well," he said. "The educational
aspect will not go away."

But others aren't so sure.

Medford Police Officer Joe Ajhar has spent a decade describing drugs and
their consequences to fifth- and sixth-graders. He said regular contact has
allowed him to reinforce messages about resisting peer pressure and
avoiding drug use.

"It's going to be gone. I'm disappointed," said Ajhar, 51. "I still have
students who graduated years ago who come up to me and say they're drug-free."

DARE drew criticism in recent years after several surveys showed it wasn't
effective. National organizers revamped the curriculum to include seventh-
and ninth-graders, a format that was to begin in Medford next year.

Medford School Board member Peggy Penland said DARE is one of several
strategies for reaching kids and that losing it jeopardizes the web of
community care that keeps young people on track.

"It's just another erosion of primary prevention and it breaks my heart,"
Penland said. "I think we're going to lose some kids because of it."

Cutting the program was prompted in part by mandates of the new No Child
Left Behind Act, which emphasizes academic outcomes, said McCollum.

Elementary teachers and principals worried that DARE took time that could
be used to boost subjects linked to federal funding.

"That's really where the bottom line comes in," McCollum said.

Still, she acknowledged that the DARE program, with its essay contests, its
summer party, its T-shirts and its bumper stickers, has been popular with
elementary school parents and students alike.

"The DARE graduation has become a tradition in our schools," she said. "Now
we just won't have that piece."