Schools Seek New Message Against Drugs

With the drug-awareness DARE program left in only a handful of elementary schools, Los Angeles Unified School District officials are shopping for ways to teach young children about the perils of substance abuse and tobacco use.

In the fall, the district will try a curriculum developed in-house that will integrate anti-abuse lessons with other basic studies. In addition, about 90 district schools are testing two other drug-awareness curricula -- one that asks kids to write in journals about drug avoidance and another that uses booklets with eye-catching graphics, games and quizzes.

The need to find a new approach to teach children about the dangers of drug use is the result of the Los Angeles Police Commission’s decision to transfer about 30 DARE officers back to the street to combat violence. The remaining DARE officers were shifted to the middle schools, at the school district’s request.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, started in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department, involved specially trained officers visiting elementary, middle and high school classrooms on a regular basis to teach curriculum written by L.A. Unified.

The removal of DARE officers from most elementary schools means that teachers are now asked to provide anti-substance-abuse education to meet state and federal requirements.

But Rona Cole, coordinator of the district’s health education programs, said, “I don’t know if that’s happening in every school.”

Because health education isn’t on any state assessment test, some teachers may not be covering the subject in regular lessons, she said.

“Part of our job is to help [teachers] see that healthy kids are better learners,” Cole said. “It’s an uphill battle.”

To support teachers tackling the issues of drug, alcohol and tobacco use, the district has developed a curriculum for kindergarten through fifth-grade students that correlates with basic lessons. When third-graders are learning about letter writing, for example, they could be asked to write to a friend telling about the dangers of smoking. Or students might do a science experiment illustrating how smoking can pollute a room for as long as five hours.

The district also is testing two other programs for about 118,000 fourth- and fifth-graders.

One program, “In My House,” is based on the metaphor that the student is a house, with the rooms representing such things as feelings, school, self-image and the future. It asks youngsters to draw a picture of their “house” and answer such questions as “Which room in your house do you like the best?” and “Which room do you believe will change the most in the next year or two?”

In a separate 24-page workbook, students at 36 elementary schools are learning about drugs, from caffeine to inhalants to heroin. Various strategies are explored to help them resist temptation and deal with peer pressure.

“It gets kids involved in the process. What does this mean to you? How does this apply in your life?” said Bill Calhoun, national sales director for the Change Companies of Carson City, Nev.

The company’s journal-writing format was developed 14 years ago for use in federal prisons and drug treatment centers. About three years ago, a workbook was designed for schools. About 250 nationwide are using it, company officials said.

Nearly 40% of the 2,500 inmates at the Larry Smith Detention Center in Banning take part in the voluntary journal-writing program that includes group discussions, said supervising correctional counselor Matthew M. Williams. The journals are popular because they are interactive and become a permanent record of the inmate’s lifestyle changes, he said.

“I’ve been in corrections for 40 years and I’ve not seen anything that works as well as this,” Williams said. “After the inmates are released, they take [the journals] home. I’ve even had former inmates come up to the gate and ask me for another one.”

The district also is testing “Who Knew?,” created by the Channing Bete Co. of South Deerfield, Mass. It addresses such topics as smoking, drugs and alcohol in 12-page handouts. Each has a game and a short play that teach about the dangers of substance abuse, plus a page of questions for students to complete with their parents.

“Who Knew?” is being tested at about 60 elementary schools. Currently, 400 schools and 400 public safety and health departments nationwide are using it, said company President Mike Bete. The students in the pilot projects were tested before and will be tested again after the lessons to determine the effectiveness of the materials. Teachers’ opinions also will be sought.