Cheney District Forms Task Force To Examine Successor To Dare

Thu., April 9, 1998

Amy Scribner Staff writer

Cheney School District officials aren’t wasting any time finding solutions to losing the district’s DARE program.

Assistant Superintendent Annette Granier already has set up a task force of teachers, counselors, principals and parents from each of the district’s five elementary schools.

“It was easy,” said Granier. “There are a lot of people interested in working on this.”

The group plans to look at alternatives to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. The city of Cheney most likely will call it quits with DARE after 12 years.

The cash-strapped city has placed a freeze on new hires and can’t replace an officer who went on disability leave in January. That leaves too few officers to staff the DARE program.

The task force will meet April 14 to discuss new curriculum. Granier has said the district would like to include more self-esteem and health-based lessons in the DARE replacement. It’s also possible the classes would be spread over a period of years.

The DARE program teaches 17 lessons to fifth- or sixth-graders.

Two community forums will be planned in the coming months to discuss curriculum, Granier said. One will be held in Cheney and another for the district’s two West Plains elementary schools.

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