[Winona] School Board's Financial Support of DARE

[Kathy Seifert]

First of all, I need to note that I have no reason to doubt that Officer Kearney is a good and ethical person just trying to continue to do work that he loves and that my comments about D.A.R.E. have nothing to do with him personally.  We need folks who are passionate about their work to be spending time with our kids.   That being said, I'm very concerned that the school board is choosing to designate $5,000 to a program that hasn't even been proven to be effective.  In fact an independent study conducted for the U.S. Department of Education by the Research Triangle Institute (billed as "one of the premier research institutes in the world") confirms that school-based drug prevention programs like D.A.R.E. appear to have "a limited to essentially non-existent effect" on students' drug use.  You may find the complete text at:   http://www.rti.org/pubs/0397drugfree_schools.pdf   In these times when our schools are struggling so hard to try to get the best for our kids, I don't think that the D.A.R.E. program cuts the mustard.  I suggest that board members do some more research and be willing to re-visit this issue.  Please make decisions based on all the facts and don't let biased passions have more influence than reason.   Kathy Seifert