West Fargo Drops D.A.R.E. Program - Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

The West Fargo Public School District has axed the D.A.R.E. program.

D.A.R.E. stands for drug abuse resistance education. The program started in 1983 and has taken some heat over the years for not being as effective as it once was. Valley News Live finds out what other districts, that have already dropped D.A.R.E., are doing to fill in the gap.

This upcoming school year the West Fargo Public School District will no longer be using the D.A.R.E. program. It's the same program many of us graduated from in the 80's 90's even 2000's. Instead they'll be using a new health education approach they call more encompassing and comprehensive. It's similar to what Fargo schools adopted years ago, when they got rid of D.A.R.E.

Ron Schneider, a Fargo Public School Counselor, remembers when his district changed their program to something new called "know your body", "you know D.A.R.E. at the time had done a really good job at teaching not only the alcohol, drug and tobacco pieces. But also the peer pressure and conflict resolution, and some of those things at the time. It was a very good program and we used it for a number of years."

D.A.R.E. remains hugely popular. 50 thousand police officers have been trained to teach the course to date. Nearly 36 million of us have graduated from D.A.R.E. But research suggests the program that started back in 1983 is out of touch with today's youth.

Schneider says "know your body," stood out as something different and new, "when someone does thorough research on a program and proves to us the program can be effective and is working teaching the kids, that's a key piece for us and at the time that was a big difference between the two."

Schneider says that's one of the reasons Fargo went with it's new health education program. A program that starts teaching kids about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse at an early age.

"It has to build on itself, and you can't just drop something in with a student in a certain grade. So we found a program that takes it from the very beginning, which is kindergarten, and just works it up with them until they graduate," explains Schneider.

Under West Fargo's new health course curriculum coming this fall, students will still have the chance to have one on one time and class room time with police officers, which was a major part of the D.A.R.E. program.