News

DARE returns to Medina schools
The Gazette - June 2008

MEDINA — About 300 more kids received drug abuse education this school year than in 2006-07, said Jerome Klue, DARE and school resource officer for the city police department.

After a six-year hiatus, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, a 10-class program incorporated into school curriculums, was reintroduced into the sixth grade at A.I. Root and Claggett middle schools during the school year, Klue said. He said he also taught DARE-related and Internet safety programs to seventh- and eighth-graders.

Last year the program only was taught to students in the city’s parochial schools, such as St. Francis Xavier.

The DARE program was eliminated right before the city’s major budget cuts in 2001, Detective Scott Thomas said.

“We were looking at the school resource program and to do the school resource and the DARE programs was going to be too difficult,” Thomas said, adding the decision was made for budget reasons and the fact the school district was bringing its own prevention program online for elementary students at the same time.

However, the school district and police department decided to bring it back, and Klue was able to develop positive relationships with students while providing education, prevention and intervention to the schools, a police statement says.

“It provides students with the skills necessary to recognize and resist pressures to experiment with drugs and avoid gangs, crime and violence,” the statement says.

“We talk about drugs, resistance to violence, anger and cooling down scenarios,” Klue said, adding students also learn about good decision-making tools they can use the rest of their lives.

Moving with the times, Klue said Internet safety is important for students.

“We teach them what to do, what not to do. We talk about all the different kinds of crimes done on the Internet such as predators, bullying and crimes like menacing, how not to get involved and how to prevent becoming a victim,” Klue said. “We show them how to use a computer, how and when to use (instant messenger), how and when to use texting and if they become a victim, how to protect the information for prosecution.”

Klue said, though he does not have a specific example, he has experienced the positive impact of DARE with the students, parents and community.

“Disclosure from the students during and after classes is significant,” he said in a statement. “Knowing what is going on with these students when problems occur is paramount to the DARE goals and objectives of preventing future problems.”

He added: “Words cannot explain the personal gratification that I have received as I participate each additional year and see the positive impact I have made with so many of our youth and now young adults.”

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