D.A.R.E. TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

First Year Back Successful For Drug Resistance And Education Program
In Vidor School District

The questions that Jerry Parker fields sometimes may seem tough for
someone to want to answer.

"Have you ever done drugs?"

"Did you ever drink? Why?"

But he answers every question he is asked truthfully, because the
ones asking him are the same ones he feels are the most important
for our future - children. Fifth graders to be exact.

And Parker, D.A.R.E. instructor for the Vidor Independent School
District knows that they are looking to him for an example.

"If we can affect one child to make the right decision, it is all
worth it," Parker said. "Whatever it takes."

The Vidor school district reinstated the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program's fifth grade curriculum before the start of the
current school year.

"It is a scientifically based curriculum that covers the required
categories for student education," Parker said.

"It is still the same process that was used by the Orange County
Sheriff's Department, before they dropped the program [on Sept. 13,
2004]. We just reinforce it differently."

One way that Parker uses different reinforcement is that he is a
member of the school district's own police force, so he is able to
spend two days a week working with fifth graders for three class periods.

Sheriff's department D.A.R.E. officers had to cover all school
districts in the Orange County area and never had the chance to work
with students one-onone.

"The program works much better this way," Tammy Cox, teen leadership
instructor and art teacher at Vidor Middle School, said.

"Jerry actually gets to know the kids, something that the county
officers were never really able to do. They just didn't have the
luxury of getting to be around one group of kids."

Cox said that she has worked with the D.A.R.E. program over her
tenure at the middle school, and said that sometimes Vidor ended up
getting the short end of the stick when it came to the program.

"Some of the county officers were not able to get across to the kids
and get down on their level," she said.

"That is really needed to make this program work. Jerry is able to do that."

Parker said that in his eyes and from what he is seeing the kids do,
he personally views the first year of the reinstated D.A.R.E.
program as a success.

"These kids are sharp," he said. "They ask a lot of questions and
they want more information. I read the essays that they write and
they put a lot of the information that they have learned into what
they write."

The D.A.R.E. program not only focuses on drugs, tobacco and alcohol
but also on bullying and violence, which Parker also teaches classes
on at the elementary school level across the district.

"Right now we are reaching the 10-12 year-old age range," Parker
said. "But the most vulnerable years in a child's life come in the
13- to 14-year-old range. I'd really like to explore the
opportunities of getting a class at the seventh grade junior high
level to reinforce what we are teaching here and to reach those in
the most vulnerable group."

Parker said that the workbooks and paperwork are available for the
seventh grade curriculum.

"It can't hurt to try," he said. "If we swing the bat, we might hit
the ball. But if we never pick up the bat, we'll never hit anything."