TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager and Chief of Police to report back to the City Council on the potential and feasibility of increasing police department resources for the D.A.R.E. program.
DISCUSSION
The Long Beach Area Council P.T.A. is spearheading an effort to make more D.A.R.E.
trained police officers available to Long Beach schools. At present, there are only two part-time, retired officers assigned to the program, down from seven officers assigned to the program since before the 2005 fall school semester. Between these two officers, only eight schools are receiving D.A.R.E. program training this semester. The D.A.R.E.
program was not able to accommodate many school requests for D.A.R.E. officers during Red Ribbon Week.
The PT A maintains that it is crucial that children in our community see officers as people who are safe to approach. They further maintain that this is learned most easily in a classroom setting in which a D.A.R.E. officer, through his lessons and encouragement of group participation, builds an environment of trust and acceptance through lessons taught, including subjects relating to self-esteem and drug and alcohol abuse. The PTA wants uniformed, D.A.R.E. trained officers teaching in our classrooms.
Because of the support provided by D.A.R.E. America, training of D.A.R.E. instructors and implementation of D.A.R.E. curricula is extremely inexpensive. D.A.R.E. America provides all D.A.R.E. training methods, instruction, curricula and technical support free of charge. D.A.R.E. workbooks are provided at the production cost of 89~ per student and are provided at no cost for the first year of implementation. D.A.R.E. America also provides technical assistance free of charge.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
COUNCILWOMAN GERRIE SCHPISKE, FIFTH DISTRICT