Accounts vary about value of DARE

For the students of West Hernando Christian School, drug education is a taste of reality.

The small private school in Spring Hill has only one class per grade, so the weekly sessions with sheriff's deputies are intimate and personal. The deputies follow a curriculum called DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which reinforces lessons about the hazards of illicit drugs.

But more than coloring books or T-shirts or educational videos, it's the one-on-one interaction with the deputies that makes the difference, says Marti Covert, the school's administrator.

"It's a vital program," Covert said. "I'm disappointed it would have to be cut."

While it's not a certainty yet, DARE is one of the programs Sheriff Richard Nugent might ax if the county goes forward with a $4.2 million cut to his budget.

The four deputies who teach the classes have combined salaries of more than $275,000.

Not everyone is convinced that's money well spent.

Dr. Domenick Maglio has turned down an offer to host the program in the private school he oversees, Wider Horizons School.

In his opinion, drug education takes away from a school's purpose, which is to teach reading, writing and critical thinking. The topic isn't necessarily ignored, especially if there's a relevant question to a current event.

But Maglio believes it's mainly the family's duty, not the school's, to teach lessons about peer pressure and consequences. For police, their duty is to control crime, he added.

Especially given the tight budget, there are better ways to spend taxpayer money, Maglio said.

"Tough times take tough measures," he said.

Research is mixed about the effectiveness of early childhood drug education and the DARE program in particular.

One study released last week focused on a substance abuse program hosted in 20 elementary schools in Hawaii. The study, supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, found that beginning education with first-graders positively affected their choices as fifth-graders.

"This study provides compelling evidence that intervening with young children is a promising approach to preventing drug use and other problem behaviors," NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow said in a prepared statement.

The Hawaii program was not DARE, however.

A 2003 study by the General Accounting Office, a government watchdog group, questioned the efficiency of DARE

In six long-term evaluations, "no significant differences in illicit drug use" were found between the fifth- and sixth-graders who took the classes and those who didn't.

On Tuesday, Nugent said the program's success cannot be gauged in scientific terms. As Covert mentioned in her interview, the sheriff places much of the value on the deputies' relationships with the children.

"The interaction with the kids throughout the program is valuable," he said.

Nugent added the big picture can be lost sometimes when examining a program from a cold, clinical perspective.

Neither Citrus nor Pasco counties have a DARE program. Citrus uses two elementary school resource officers who have designed their own curriculum. Pasco can only afford two elementary school resource officers and "due to budget cuts" shut down the program a few years ago, according to spokesman Kevin Doll.

At West Hernando Christian School, Covert would like to see other budget cuts before the deputies are forced to quit teaching the program at the school.

"The kids do get a lot out of it," she said.