By Joan Garvin

Local schools feel the loss of police contact with kids

The impact of the ongoing difficulty of filling police department positions in Los Altos has trickled down into areas not at first apparent.

One of the major drug awareness and education programs presented in elementary schools throughout the nation is D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). The core element of the program is that local police officers teach it, providing an early contact with students.

Brent Butler, former School Resource Officer from the Los Altos Police Department, taught the D.A.R.E. program at Montclaire School, of the Cupertino Union School District, and St. Simon and St. Nicholas parochial schools.

LAPD Sgt. Tom Connelly explained that the program and the position have been suspended due to the current staffing shortage. In compliance with police policy to provide basic emergency services 24 hours a day, positions such as school resource officer, detective bureau sergeant, representative to the county’s regional auto theft and narcotics task forces and to the Department of Justice, are unstaffed.

According to Connelly, in spite of serious recruiting efforts, there is no way of judging when the position of school resource officer can be reinstated.

Montclaire is the only public school which used the D.A.R.E. program and was directly affected by the loss of the school resource officer. Principal Nancy Wood said the district has no replacement. The Sheriff’s Department and Sunnyvale are also understaffed.

Montclaire’s sixth-grade teachers will use “Here’s Looking at You 2000,” to cover drug education and awareness material.

St. Simon’s School in Los Altos and St. Nicholas School in Los Altos Hills both had scheduled the D.A.R.E. program and used it for several years.

“The loss of the D.A.R.E. program is absolutely devastating,” said Becky van Meter, St. Simon’s sixth-grade teacher. “The record stands that any student who went through the drug program with Officer Brent Butler at St. Simon’s over the past four years has never had a police encounter regarding drugs or alcohol.”

Pinewood has always folded its drug education into their science curriculum, so they are not impacted by the loss of the D.A.R.E. program.

The Los Altos School District has never used the D.A.R.E. program, according to Richard W. Liewer, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction. The Los Altos schools teach from the “Growing Healthy Program.”

“It permits our teachers to insert drug awareness and education in the curriculum as a systemic part of the Life Science curriculum,” Liewer said.

Dr. Patricia J. Bubenik, superintendent of the Mountain View School District, said that the Mountain View and Whisman districts had already switched from the D.A.R.E. program, but retain the police involvement.

Officers in the Youth Services Division of the Mountain View Police Department, which had been teaching the D.A.R.E. program, found that a prescriptive formula which served students nationwide did not specifically address the local situation.

School Resource Officers Matt Murphy, Mike Mullen and Bill Crawford worked with the school staffs and teachers to tailor a program, Y.I.E.L.D. (Youth Intervention and Education for Lifelong Decision-Making).

Y.I.E.L.D. is comprehensive, including issues such as conflict resolution and personal responsibility, as well as targeting local issues, such as smoking.

The loss of the D.A.R.E. program as an educational tool does not present an unsolvable problem to the local schools; but it does uncover a situation that all the Los Altos schools considered serious and significant.

Vice Principal Mary Merkert of St. Nicholas School in Los Altos Hills said they will blend drug awareness into their Family Life curriculum; but there is no way to recreate the impact of the police officers on campus. “It is unbelievable … you should see the kids when the officers come and bring the paraphernalia,” Merkert said. “It makes such an impact on them.”

Van Meter echoed the sentiments, “I can teach the curriculum, but I am not a police officer. Having police officers at the school made the children very conscious of their presence.

“The students learned to respect the officers and the police department.

“We can cover the same curriculum with other teacher-taught programs; but this does not replace the School Resource Officer,” Wood said. “Officer Butler was wonderful. He got to know the children … became part of our community.”

Wood said that having the police interact with the young children in events other than the D.A.R.E. program provided a connection with the police. That link will be broken.