Warsaw School Board Hears DARE Update From Officers
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Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Two Drug Abuse Resistance Education officers talked about challenges they deal with when they discussed DARE at the Warsaw School Board meeting Tuesday.
Warsaw Police Department officer Roy Navarro said the program is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the start of the program in Warsaw, having finished its 34th year with graduations recently.
Officer Lewis Fuller said the program used to have a graduation, but the COVID-19 pandemic “kind of wrecked” that. However, this year, two graduations were held: one on April 25 and the second on Tuesday.
Board President Heather Reichenbach said a couple years ago, her daughter told Reichenbach she had too many good things going in her life to deal with drugs. Reichenbach said that mindset is attributed to the curriculum taught in the DARE program and it does make a difference.
Navarro said they do run into past graduates from the program.
Board Vice President Randy Polston said his brother, Terry, used to be a DARE officer and, when he died, there was a candlelight vigil for him. Polston and other family members attended the vigil and Polston said people lined up to tell Polston and family members about stories they had about Terry.
Polston said the DARE officers are developing relationships with students that are needed.
Board member Elle Turley asked if the challenges officers deal with are the same now as they were in past years.
Fuller said the challenge in the past was to get students to just say no. He said he’s seen the challenges DARE officers face shift to more online and social media challenges due to the fact students have more access to the internet. He said students have a lot of power at their hands at such a young age.
In other business, the board heard an update about the construction at the high school from Director of Facilities Jim LeMasters. He said some of the updates include some of the carpeting at the high school will go down today and the curbs have been done.
