FIFTH-GRADERS MAY MISS OUT ON COPS' ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM

Redwood City's police-sponsored program to teach fifth-graders about the
dangers of drug abuse may not make it back to school this year.

Budget cuts appear likely to kill the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Program, commonly known as DARE, which the city has offered since 1996.

"The students and the parents feel it's extremely useful,'' said Police
Chief Carlos Bolanos. But with the police department forced to cut 4.5
percent of its $21 million budget, the $100,000-a-year DARE program lost
out to other initiatives. The city council is scheduled to approve a budget
Aug. 25 that reassigns the officer who taught DARE to patrol duty. Classes
begin Sept. 2.

DARE "doesn't fulfill our primary mission of protecting life and
property,'' Bolanos said.

Bolanos, who introduced DARE to Redwood City shortly after becoming police
chief nine years ago, said he would be disappointed to see it go. ``One of
the greatest benefits is the positive relationship it establishes between
the officers and kids,'' he said. ``Without DARE, the children don't have
any other reason to have contact with police.''

DARE has received its share of criticism over the years.

Several have questioned its effectiveness, and some police departments,
including those in San Jose, Sunnyvale and San Mateo, have developed their
own programs to spread the word to children to "just say no'' to drugs.

But according to Ralph Lochridge, a media spokesman for DARE, the program
is used in 83 percent of school districts in the United States, and is
being taught in 54 countries. Over the past five years, 1,000 programs have
been added around the world.

"We're strong, healthy and still growing,'' Lochridge said.

DARE officials are in the process of strengthening the program, thanks to a
$13.7 million grant to the University of Akron from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation. The grant will go toward developing a new curriculum for
fifth-graders and expanding the program to include middle school and high
school sessions.

City council members and Bolanos hope that elimination of the DARE program,
if passed, would be temporary. In the meantime, Bolanos is working with the
former DARE officer to develop a proposal for an alternative program to be
presented to city council. Bolanos wants to establish some form of the
program for the coming school year.

This is good news for local supporters of DARE, including Bob Diaz, who has
been a crossing guard at Taft Elementary School in Redwood City for 11
years. Diaz remembered how proudly the children wore their DARE T-shirts to
school.

"It made a difference to all the longtime residents,'' he said of the program.