D.A.R.E. teaches our children-from kindergarten through high school-that popularity can be found in positive behavior, that belonging need not require them to abandon their values, that self-confidence and self-worth come from asserting themselves and resisting destructive temptations. D.A.R.E. teaches them not just that they should refuse drugs and alcohol, and not participate in violent activities, but how to do so.
D.A.R.E. gives our children the tools they need to build a better, fuller, more satisfying life.
The program was created in 1983 as a joint venture of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District. D.A.R.E. sends a highly trained police officer into fifth and sixth grade classrooms and 7th and 8th grade classrooms every week for 10 weeks to teach dents how to refuse drugs and alcohol and stay violence free.
Assigned a "beat" in which they teach D.A.R.E. in up to five schools a week, D.A.R.E. officers reach hundreds of thousands of students each year.
The program follows a carefully structured curriculum, focusing on topics such as personal safety, drug use and misuse, consequences of behavior, resisting peer pressure, assertiveness training, media images of drug use, and how to use friendship foundations to stay safe and drug-free. Separate components have been developed to introduce kindergarten through fourth grade students to the D.A.R.E. program and teach lessons in elementary, middle school and high school classrooms, spreading the D.A.R.E. message throughout the schools.
By getting the message from a street-wise police officer-one who's been out there, one who knows how drugs and alcohol can destroy lives-kids take that message seriously.
In January 1990, the Tennessee Highway Patrol trained experienced troopers from each of its eight enforcement districts to teach D.A.R.E. Today we are still instructing Tennessee's school children in ways to safely resist drugs and violence. We are also continually training law enforcement officers across Tennessee to go into their communities and teach D.A.R.E.
Today, D.A.R.E. has certified more than 55,000 officers worldwide. D.A.R.E. is taught in all 50 states and over 55 foreign countries, reaching some 2.5 million children annually. Tennessee currently has more than 300 certified D.A.R.E. officers. D.A.R.E. is taught in over 85 percent of the school districts in the state with more than 60,000 students taught each year.
