COUNTY SCHOOLS WILL LOSE 1 OF 2 D.A.R.E. OFFICERS

Sheriff: Deputies Are In Short Supply

Daviess County Public Schools will lose one of its two D.A.R.E. sheriff's
deputies in January, Daviess Sheriff Keith Cain said Monday.

Deputy Kelly Payne will be reassigned to patrol in the county while Deputy
Scott Wedding continues to offer the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program to elementary students full time, Cain said.

The move could eliminate D.A.R.E. officer visits to students in
kindergarten through fourth grade, Wedding said.

Payne is needed on patrol to help relieve the department of the growing
number of emergency calls, Cain said.

When Cain became sheriff in 1999, deputies responded to 7,325 calls, he
said. Thanks mainly to increased cell phone use, those calls have nearly
doubled, he said. The department has had 13,620 calls so far this year, he
said.

"It's just a matter of priority and of need," Cain said. "I'll continue to
be very supportive of the D.A.R.E. program. However, it's just a matter of
priorities."

Cain could not say that the program will survive future changes.

"I don't want the program to go away in its entirety," Cain said. "Can I
tell you definitively that it won't? No."

Cain said other funding sources to cover the $85,000 cost of the program --
the salary of the two officers -- have been sought with no success. The
school district pays $7,500 per officer per year.

The department added three new deputies this year, but it is still
significantly understaffed, said Capt. David Osborne. The department has 21
officers who patrol a county that the FBI says should be covered with 72
officers, he said.

"We need more people," Osborne said. "We just don't have enough deputies to
sufficiently answer the calls. We're never going to have 70 officers, but
we need more than we have now."

Instead of working in half of the district's elementary and middle schools,
Wedding will now work in all of them, said Leesa Moman, assistant
superintendent for teaching and learning for Daviess County Public Schools.

"The schools are working with Scott to reorganize his schedule," Moman
said. "We'll continue to provide services to schools with a pretty
productive program."

The "core elementary program" will stay the same for fifth- and
sixth-graders, Wedding said. That program involves 17 weeks of in-class
instruction on life skills, different ways to say no to drugs, how to avoid
peer pressure, the effects of drugs and the consequences of drug use, he said.

But periodic visits to classrooms in kindergarten through fourth grade
"will be cut down and possibly abolished," said Wedding, who spends 40
hours a week in the schools.

A recent study by the Institute for Health and Social Policy at the
University of Akron found that seventh-graders who have gone through the
D.A.R.E. program were more likely to find using drugs socially
inappropriate, were better at refusing drugs and had fewer misconceptions
about how many of their peers use drugs.

Owensboro Public Schools are served by two D.A.R.E. officers from the
Owensboro Police Department.