Newberg-Dundee School District students have been DARE-ing for months, and they’re feeling safer already!
Since December, local fifth-graders have been learning about safe and healthy living through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (DARE). This past week, dozens of students at Dundee, Edwards, and Mabel Rush Elementary Schools had finally finished their DARE education. Their instructor, School Resource Officer (SRO) Jay Stearns, gave them a graduation ceremony to remember. Standout students received a medal and a student at each school was chosen as the winner of an essay contest. All students received a certificate.
“We can go to college now!” Dundee fifth-grader Aria Hirschfelt when she received her certificate.
In a way, Aria is right. The research-based DARE curriculum aims to prepare students to interact with their peers in a healthy way, offering communication tools that students could use all of their lives — even in college. For example, students are shown scenarios and consider how to respond. The scenarios include how to prevent and respond to bullying as well as how to avoid succumbing to peer pressure to use alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.
Students demonstrated a strong understanding of the material, especially the essay winners, each of whom read their work aloud during the ceremony: Brinsley Jenkins at Edwards Elementary, Austin McLennan at Mabel Rush; and Bryli Lund at Dundee.
“Before you send a text, consider how someone would feel before you send it,” said Dundee’s winner, Bryli.
Brinsley, the Edwards essay winner, was particularly interested in the effectiveness of the DARE decision-making model.
“I plan to use the DARE decision-making model to stay out of trouble and keep myself safe,” she said. “I have no doubt that I will have opportunities in the future to use it.”
The decision-making model stands for define, assess, respond, and evaluate. You define the problem, assess the situation, respond with the information you have gathered, and then evaluate to see if you have made a good choice. Austin said that he used the DARE decision-making model recently in an interaction with his brother.
By defining the situation, he realized that he could go first or allow his brother to do so. He feels he made the right decision.
“I was able to go next and have an equal amount of turns,” he said.
At each ceremony, Stearns gave all his students, including Austin, Brinsley, and Bryli, one more lesson of DARE-ing do to carry with them. He explained how we can make smart decisions — even when we’re already in a jam. Stearns told the students a story of a man whose truck got stuck in deep, deep snow. The man stays calm and remains active, gathering wood and piling it in the truck bed. Eventually, he puts in enough wood that the pressure on the back wheels gives him traction. He could then return to his family and bring them wood to burn and stay warm.
“You will get traction and you will get home safely,” said Stearns, who became an SRO for Newberg-Dundee this fall.
The next DARE sessions will be at Joan Austin, Crater, and Ewing Young Elementary Schools, starting the week after Spring Break.
Note: Some photos are courtesy of the schools and families! Thank you for your help!