STUDENTS, TEACHERS RESPOND FAVORABLY TO NEW DRUG EDUCATION PROGRAM

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Ele~mentary students and teachers alike have responded positively to a new drug education program offered through the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

"I get a lot of real good input from the kids and they seem to be having a lot of fun," the program's coordinator, Cape Girardeau Police Officer Jeannie Dailey, said last week. "I've gotten all positive responses from the teachers."

The program is known as DARE. The acronym stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

Dailey was hired as the local program's coordinator late last year, after teaching the DARE program part time in Sikeston. Her salary comes from the Cape Girardeau Police Department, the Missouri Division of Highway Safety, and through grant money provided to the Drug Free School and Community Advisory Council.

Dailey began instructing students in the 14-week, semester course eight weeks ago. Six elementary schools, both public and parochial, currently take part: Hawthorn, Trinity, May Greene, St. Mary's, Jefferson, and Nell Holcomb.

With the exception of a fifth-grade class at Nell Holcomb Elementary, Dailey works with sixth-graders. She visits each school once a week for 45 minutes.

Altogether, Dailey said, she instructs about 275 students.

"They are really a good bunch of kids here in Cape to work with," she said. "They're really up, active, and positive."

The program makes use of role-playing skits. Students are taught to be assertive and confident and say "no," not only to drugs but also to encouragements to steal, vandalize, and cheat.

Saying no in those other life situations makes it easier for the students to say no to drugs, she said.

"Once they build confidence in themselves they realize they have certain rights and being drug-free happens to be one of those rights," said Dailey.

Though Dailey sets the boundaries for the skits, the students come up with their own questions and responses. And Dailey said the students are very creative in their role playing.

"They just don't get up there and say: `You want to do drugs? No thanks.' Some of them go as far as to act it out. They like to use props."

The students' teachers remain in the room during Dailey's instruction sessions.

"Occasionally I ask them to get involved (in the role playing). And the kids like that; they want to see how they (the teachers) respond in those type of situations," she said.

Dailey said she doesn't know of any specific case where the program got a student off drugs.

"But I did have one parent say she thought this program was helping her son if nothing else, attitude-wise," she said.

All students who complete the course will receive a certificate of achievement at an assembly this spring.

Dailey said she didn't know if she would be instructing the course at different elementary schools in the fall. The program will be made available, she said.

Also in a related matter last week, the police department took its canine, a male German shepherd trained in drug detection, to Cape Girardeau's schools. The dog visited students in connection with Alcohol and Drug Awareness Week.

Students met the dog, who is named "Greif" (pronounced Grife), and heard how he is used within the department, said Sgt. Carl Kinnison.

The department purchased the dog last fall with grant money. Part of the plan was to use the dog in educational presentations to students.

Kinnison said school administrators had suggested that Alcohol and Drug Awareness Week would be a good time for Greif to visit the schools.