SCOTT CITY STUDENTS LEARN TO `JUST SAY NO'

SCOTT CITY - Scott City Junior High students are being taught to "Just Say No" by participating in Project STAR for the fifth consecutive year.

Project STAR, Students Taught Awareness and Resistance, is a student-teacher cooperative effort to reduce drug and alcohol abuse among young people and to promote effective communication between students and their parents about the use and abuse of drugs.

Judy Bane, Scott City Junior High guidance counselor, is currently training a select group of students to assist teachers with the 13-session, three-week program presented to seventh grade students during their regular life skills class period.

"The students we're training were voted on by the student body," Bane said. "We feel that the message is better delivered if reinforced by the suggestion of the students' peers."

During the sessions, students are taught techniques to say "no," consequences of using drugs, how to resist peer pressure, the effects of advertising and how to make informed, responsible decisions.

A workbook is given to each student to take home and work from with their parents. "(The workbook) really gets the parents involved and begins communication between parent and child about drugs and alcohol," Bane said.

The student leaders help demonstrate techniques and provide a medium to which their peers can relate. At the end of the three-week seminar, the student leaders write a rap-song which they perform in front of an elementary school audience.

A five-part follow-up course is offered to eighth grade students to fortify positive practices in their everyday lifestyles.

Project STAR was launched in 1984 by Ewing Kauffman, owner of the Kansas City Royals baseball team. Ewing gives $500,000 annually to the program through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Marion Laboratories, Inc.

Bane and teachers Sherry Mayo, June Swift and Jeanette Mastin completed a three-day training session before the school could be accepted into the program.