DARE-ING TO ASK THE TOUGH QUESTIONS

Clay County Voices

I must admit that I have never been a big fan of the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program, known as DARE. So I was more than a little pleased to
see that a new program called SAVE, for Substance Abuse and Violence
Education, is being introduced into our schools this year.

My experience with DARE began the year the program was introduced in Clay
County schools. My daughter was in sixth grade. It was just yesterday. OK,
it wasn't just yesterday my daughter was in sixth grade. It just seems that
way sometimes. It was, in fact, over a decade ago.

At the time the class was taught once a week for a semester. What really
bugged me is that the only time the class could be held -- or at least that
is what parents were told -- was during the scheduled math class. Parents
were not informed such a class was beginning. We found out from our
daughter during a dinner table conversation. We asked to obtain a copy of
the booklet used in the class and that was like asking for top secret
documents from the Pentagon.

And I will admit, we were old-fashioned parents, even in those "old" days
when my daughter was in sixth grade. We believed we were sending our
children to school to be taught academics, and it was our responsibility as
parents to teach our children right from wrong.

The school's argument was that DARE was teaching the students self- esteem,
which would keep them off drugs. We argued that if the kids were struggling
in math, that would only lower their self-esteem, and missing a math class
every week for an entire semester seemed mind- boggling.

You can guess who won that argument. However, the following year the DARE
program was no longer taught in lieu of math. And now DARE, taught by
resource officers from the Clay County Sheriff's Office, is history.

According to a story in last week's County Line, the new program will not
last as long, will be spread across three grade levels and not be as
intrusive on the academic class schedule of our students. Bravo!

Granted the new program will be a savings of $20,000, but I gather from a
quote in the story that Sheriff Scott Lancaster was also concerned about
DARE's impact on academics.

"It's more than money. It's the quality of what we're doing for the kids --
the classroom time we're taking them out of the academic environment,"
Lancaster said.

Interestingly, an Associated Press story sites a recent study published
Aug. 3 in the journal Health Education Research in which University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers say many schools are using
popular programs such as DARE, which are "heavily marketed curricula that
have not been evaluated, have been evaluated inadequately or have been
shown to be ineffective in reducing substance abuse."

I hope there will be parents out there who will ask to see the curriculum
of the new SAVE program that will be taught to fifth-, sixth- and
seventh-graders and learn when it will be taught during the school day. And
I hope there is some vigilance paid to the overall success of the new program.