Since May 2000, D.A.R.E. Officer Sherry James has served as the D.A.R.E. Officer for the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office providing children with the information and skills they need to live drug and violence free lives.  Officer James equips kids with the tools that will enable them to avoid negative influences and instead, allow them to focus on their strengths and potential.  Officer James, using techniques of facilitation-gone are the days of the didactic lecture-guides students as they work in small cooperative learning groups using the D.A.R.E. decision making model to apply to real life situations.  Officer James customizes the D.A.R.E. program to meet identified needs with enhancement lessons, gangs, methamphetamines, internet safety, bullying and cyber-bullying and Rx/OTC (prescription/over-the-counter) and Community presentations.

D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a collaborative program in which local law enforcement and local schools join together to educate students about the personal and social consequences of substance abuse and violence.

The D.A.R.E. curricula are delivered to the Kerrville ISD, Hunt ISD, Center Point ISD, Notre Dame Elementary and the Harper ISD.

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in 75 percent of our nation’s school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence-free lives.

The D.A.R.E. curriculum is designed to be taught by police officers whose training and experience gave them the background needed to answer the sophisticated questions often posed by young students about drugs and crime.  Prior to entering the D.A.R.E. program, Officers undergo 80 hours of special training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and communication skills.  40 hours of additional training are provided to D.A.R.E. Instructors to prepare them to teach the high school curriculum.

D.A.R.E. is Community Policing.

D.A.R.E. is universally viewed as an internationally recognized model of community policing. The United States Department of Justice has identified how D.A.R.E. benefits local communities.

The Kerr County Sheriff's Department, DARE Officer Sherry James is assigned to cover Center Point, Kerrville, Ingram, and Hunt I.S.D. DARE officers undergo 80 hours of special training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and communication skills.


The Purpose:

DARE is a collaborative effort by DARE certified law enforcement officers, educators, students, parents, and community to offer and educational program in the classroom to prevent or reduce drug abuse and violence among children and youth. The emphasis of DARE is to help students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, or other drugs or to engage in violence.

The DARE program offers preventive strategies to enhance those protective factors, especially bonding to the family, school, and community, which appears to foster the development of resiliency in young people who may be at risk for substance abuse or other problem behaviors. Research have identified certain protective and social bonding factors in the family, school, and community, which may foster resiliency in young  people, in other words, the capacity of young people for healthy, independent growth in spite of adverse conditions. These strategies focus on the development of social competences, communication skills, self-esteem, empathy, decision-making, conflict resolution, sense of purpose and independence, and positive alternative activities to drug abuse and other destructive behaviors.

The Organization:

The program content for DARE is organized into seventeen 45 to 60 minute lessons to be taught by a law enforcement officer with suggested extended activities to be integrated into other instruction by the classroom teacher. A specially trained officer is assigned to the school to conduct weekly lessons in grades 5 or 6. Student participation in the DARE program may be incorporated as an integral part of the school's curricular offering in health, science, social studies, language arts, or other subject(s) as appropriate. The classroom teacher should maintain a supportive role in classroom management while the officer is teaching and should incorporate DARE program participation by students as an integral part of the student's final evaluation.

In addition to presenting the elementary curriculum, DARE officers visit the kindergarten through fourth grade classes at the schools. These visits focus on child safety and prevention issues. Students are alerted to the potential dangers in the misuse of drugs, medicine, and other substances. There is recognition of the need to help students at this level develop awareness that alcohol and tobacco are also drugs. Four DARE sessions are held for grades K to 2nd  and five sessions are held in 3rd and 4th grades.

The concepts and skills emphasized in the DARE program are sequentially developed to extend from kindergarten through junior and senior high school.

Comprehensive Program Approach:

The DARE program offered in concert with other school-based prevention activities and intervention strategies for the identification, early intervention, and aftercare support of students at risk for substance abuse, my be viewed as a comprehensive substance abuse program that meets the goals of the Federal Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act.

DARE has become the premiere substance abuse program in the world today. It is taught in all fifty of the United States and in 52 countries around the world. DARE works hard to keep students away from drugs and violence.

A Comprehensive program within the school offers such educational activities as the following to heighten awareness and knowledge about alcohol and other drug dependencies.

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