The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office D.A.R.E. program held its graduation for Paulding Elementary fifth graders on December 5, 2016. Each student was required to write an essay before they could graduate. D.A.R.E. program consist of 12 lessons and the essay gives the students a chance to reflect back on the lessons.
Essays describe what they learned and how the D.A.R.E. program can help them make safe, responsible choices. “Once I receive all the essays, winners are selected and they receive a prize. This year the three essay winners were Joshua Funez, Ella Gorrell and Maci Kauser,” says D.A.R.E. Deputy Mendez, “I am proud of each and every student and hope they will always be safe and responsible.” Each 5th grader who completed the essay received a Certificate of Completion at graduation as well.
“I truly appreciate our Paulding County Commissioners assisting the D.A.R.E program and covering majority of the costs beyond grant monies and donations,” said Sheriff Jason K. Landers.
Following are the Essay winners:
D.A.R.E.
By; Maci Kauser
Maybe you haven’t heard of D.A.R.E.? Maybe you’re not sure of what D.A.R.E. is? Well, D.A.R.E. is when an officer from your county comes and talks to you about being responsible, how to not be a bully, taking risks will always follow with a consequence, and staying away from drugs. In the future, I plan to go to a good college and become an adult. When you go to college and become an adult you have to remember to make responsible and safe choices. During D.A.R.E. my classmates and I learned a lot about responsibility. Being responsible is a big thing in life because you have to remember to feed your pets, get up in the morning and get ready for school, and be at activities on time. Being responsible can also mean, avoiding the situation, like when you know where people are doing drugs, avoid that area and make a good choice and walk away. You also want to hang around with the people in your school or county that are nonusers of drugs. If one of your friends ever tell you that he or she found alcohol or cigarettes somewhere and they ask you if you want to go smoke or go drink, say no and walk away. Or, you can also say no and give a reason like, my parents will ground me for the rest of my life. Or, you can also change the subject when they ask if you want to go smoke or drink, like saying, let’s go play soccer instead. Also in D.A.R.E., my classmates and I learned about the D.A.R.E. Decision Making Model. In the D.A.R.E. Decision Making Model, the D stands for Define, the A stands for Assess, the R stands for Respond, and the E stands for Evaluate. Define means to describe the problem, Assess means to think of what your choices are, Respond means to make your choice and use information and facts that you have gathered, and Evaluate means to think if you made a good choice. I have used the D.A.R.E. Decision Making Model when I’m at a gymnastics meet. If I had gotten a bad score then on the next event I think of how I can do better and get a better score. I plan to use what I have learned during D.A.R.E. to say no to drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Also, to not bully someone just because they are different than me. I also learned, that reporting someone who is bullying isn’t the same as tattling on someone. When somebody is talking to you, you should respond, not give a head nod or not say anything at all.
My opinion on D.A.R.E. is it taught me how to use the D.A.R.E. Model to make me a better person. The D.A.R.E. program is mostly about having responsibility for your actions. My classmates and I thought that learning about D.A.R.E. was fun and we learned a lot. We enjoyed having Officer Mendez in our classroom and at recess.
D.A.R.E. Essay
By: Joshua Funez
When the teacher said that we are going to have D.A.R.E. this year I thought it was not going to not be fun. It turns out that D.A.R.E. was cool and fun. A police officer came in every Monday to teach use about D.A.R.E. I am going to tell you what we learned about D.A.R.E.
In lesson 1 we learned about what D.A.R.E. means to define, assess, respond and evaluate. In lesson 2 we learned about what can drugs do to your body in many ways. In lesson 3 we learned to make safe and responsible choices in good ways. In lesson 4 we learned save ways to avoid drugs like walking away or changing the subject. In lesson 5 we learned about signs of stress like a red face or if you have sweaty hands. In lesson 6 we learned about one communication style. One of them is confident communication. In lesson 7 we learned about communicating effectively. In lesson 8 we learned about what to do when there is bully in the school. In lesson 9 we learned on how to stop a bully from being mean. In lesson 10 we learned about being a helper or getting help.
Forget about saying that D.A.R.E. being boring because it is cool. I wish D.A.R.E. class was a hour long instead of thirty minutes. But still it is still good to have D.A.R.E. in class. D.A.R.E. is cool so you have to have D.A.R.E. sometime.
My D.A.R.E. Report
By: Ella Gorrell
Imagine being able to stop abuse or being able to help people resist drugs. You can just do that if you follow the word D.A.R.E. D.A.R.E. means Drug Abuse Resistance Education.
That is not all D.A.R.E. is. D.A.R.E. is making the right choices and responding positively to pressure. D.A.R.E. is knowing how to tell if people are stressed or ways to relieve stress. It is communication styles, responding to bulling. It is being able to resist drugs, alcohol, tobacco and smoking.
I use the D.A.R.E. making model all the time for example sometimes when my friends want to do things I stop and think. Do I really want to do it? How will it affect me? Will I get in trouble? Sometimes I say no I don’t want to do that because, it would be a bad decission.
That is how you can use the word D.A.R.E. It helps me a lot. If I were you I would try to use the word D.A.R.E.
