For First Time In 20 Years, Schools without a D.A.R.E. Program

Fair Lawn's Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program for sixth-graders and the Citizens Police Academy are both cancelled for this fall due to a lack of manpower in the police department, said Sgt. Derek Bastinck, supervisor of community policing.

The borough's police force will be down to 54 members after the layoffs of officers Robert Iozzia, Christopher Sullivan, Alan Annazone, and Robert Mader on Sept. 1; the retirements of Sgts. Carmine Moscatello and John Annazone in June; the transfer of Officer Justin Garcia in February; and the upcoming retirements of Capt. Anthony Serrao and Lt. Richard Goetz on Oct. 1.

Patrol officers need to be promoted to replace upper-level officers, and officers who ran D.A.R.E. and Citizens Academy need to replace the patrolmen. So there aren't any officers to run the community programs until the department's normal staffing levels are restored, Bastinck said.

D.A.R.E.–a shared service between the Fair Lawn School District and the borough–has operated a core sixth-grade program in Fair Lawn for 20 years. A uniformed police officer teaches a weekly 45-minute block of instruction per class for 10 weeks. The lessons focus on building resistance techniques to alcohol, drugs, and violence; considering consequences; resisting pressure; learning ways to say no; understanding effects of the media; accounting for stress; seeking alternatives; resolving conflict; avoiding violence; improving self-esteem; understanding risk-taking; and making decisions.

"I really think it's priceless," Bastinck said of D.A.R.E.'s value for kids, particularly ones who might be "on the fence about using drugs."

Besides for the sixth-grade core program, each eighth grade class gets 10 visits over a two-week period, which is also impossible for the department to schedule at this time, Bastinck said. Fourth-graders receive "visitation type" lessons which normally would be the easiest to schedule, he said, but difficult right now because there are seven grammar schools for the department to cover.

The Citizens Academy is an interactive and hands-on educational program in which residents 18 and older are instructed in a variety of weekly classes on topics including motor vehicle stops, self defense, anti-terrorism, Internet safety, disaster preparedness, juvenile law, domestic violence, fire safety, gang awareness, the criminal justice system, drug awareness, and traffic investigations.

Regarding The Junior Citizen's Police Academy–a weeklong program each summer that acquaints youths with the workings of the Police Department and other emergency services–Bastinck said "we hope we can still do that," but he wasn't certain.

"If we were to try to have it tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to do that," he said.

Colleen Hickey of Fair Lawn, 13, said D.A.R.E. taught her to "to be a better person."

"It meant a lot because you learn about drugs and how bad they are for you," she said.

Deputy Mayor Lisa Swain said the borough is "going to have to look at ways to see if we can continue with [community policing] programs and I think we will be able to."

"I think the programs are important. Both my kids benefited from the D.A.R.E. program," she said.