Ashland Police Division

D.A.R.E.

The D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program is a multifaceted drug and violence education program.  It includes instruction for students about the risks and consequences of abusing drugs and participating in violence.  Furthermore, it provides children with positive choices that will allow them to become a better citizen.  The program, with its many outreaches enables the Police Division to build a better rapport with the children and their families, along with faculty members of the schools and the business community.

The curriculum is designed to be taught to alternating grades at the elementary level.  The lower grades receive seven weekly classes that cover topics of personal safety from strangers, responsible use of medicines and resistance techniques of drug abuse and violence.  The core program (sixth grade) consists of seventeen weekly sessions discussing the consequences of drug abuse, daily influences from friends, family and the media, resistance techniques, positive alternatives to drug abuse and concludes with a graduation ceremony.  A middle school and high school program is taught in the seventh and ninth grade health classes, each consisting of ten weeks of instruction.

Two officers are currently assigned to the D.A.R.E. program, one officer is full-time (Officer Shipper) and one at part-time (Officer Icenhour).  Officer Shipper is responsible for the elementary buildings, along with the daily functions of the program.  These functions include planning of extracurricular activities, public relations, fundraising and the organizing of the summer camps.  Officer Shipper also instructs the Eddie Eagle Gun Safety program and the Get Real About Violence curriculum to the students of the elementary schools.

Officer Icenhour is assigned to the Middle School and the High School.  When instructing the ten-week curriculum, he delivers the D.A.R.E. materials three days per week and the remaining days are utilized for road patrol.  When not in the schools, he resumes his remaining responsibilities to the Division.