(Seguin) — Finding a new way of reaching kids in local classrooms and keeping them away from negative influences is currently in the works for the Seguin Police Department. Over the last several years, the police department has hosted the D.A.R.E. Program at local elementary schools. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education, is “an education program that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs and violent behavior.” During that time, the program has served local fifth grade students right in the classrooms of each of their respective campuses.
Seguin Police Chief Terry Nichols says the DARE program is currently underway this fall thanks to longtime instructor Hope Vasquez. However, he says Vasquez’s recent decision to retire from the department has prompted the department’s decision to perhaps consider other programming or options for local students.
“Hope Vasquez has done a wonderful job with the DARE program for many years and she announced in July that she wanted to retire from law enforcement. So, what we had to do was do some quick juggling and what we did was we created a position, an elementary school coordinator position in the budget, to transition her of a law enforcement role with the city and into a civilian role so we could continue the DARE Program for a year. We just didn’t want to go cold turkey and drop it immediately. We don’t have anybody trained to do it. We wanted to take a pause and look at this. So yes, she is delivering the curriculum as she has the past 15 years — I believe that she has been with the city doing the program and we will see after this year, the elementary school coordinator position that we put in the budget — will cease to exist. Again, we’ll look over the next year what we will have there. It maybe something entirely different. It might be a school resource officer or two. It may be someone assigned to teach in the schools at the seventh grade level or the eighth grade level or ninth grade level. Again, we just don’t know yet. We’re looking,’ said Nichols.
Nichols says he understands the value that the DARE Program has had in the Seguin community and ensures that the PD and local schools will be implementing the best program for students.
“DARE has been a very integral part of the Seguin community for a longtime, 25 years and I think successful and obviously very, very popular in our community but the science out there about it is mixed but that really doesn’t matter for our community. It’s very popular here. I think something you have going on for 25 years, you need to come and look at something with fresh eyes from both the police department perspective, the school district perspective. Is this the best for Seguin? Is there a better way to spend our time, energy, our limited funds and keeping the focus on the safety of our children and the education of our children? So, yes, I think it’s a good time to take a look back. We are doing DARE this year. I think there are some rumors floating around out there that that is not happening but no, DARE is being taught this year and it’s giving us a good 12 months to work with the school district, police department — working in conjunction with the supertindent and the district to come up with a plan. What is the best thing to do that can benefit our kids and our community whether it be DARE or some other program that is newer, more innovative, safety related. We don’t know what that’s going to look like yet,” said Nichols.
Nichols says this will likely be the last year for the DARE Program but again, remains optimistic that the Seguin PD and local schools will lock in a newer and more innovative way of keeping kids on the right path.
“Some districts create their own police departments. I don’t think that that is something that Seguin is even entertaining because one, it’s very expensive but if you look at larger cities, they have their own police departments and they have officers engaged with the students in all of those. Other model programs out there are school based law enforcement officers so you have a school resource officer assigned to a specific campus or campuses and that’s their full-time job. They interact with the kids everyday whether it be at the middle school, the high school or bouncing them over all the different schools. That’s a model that is out there. Actually, we had that in Brownwood and they have a very robust program in San Marcos and many communities have school resource officers so that is something I think is something we can look at and again, we also need to look at the sciences out there. Maybe the science tells us we need to target seventh graders and there’s some model program out there that I’m not aware of but that’s what this next year gives us. Let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 25 years and keep going with it but during this next 12 months, look at what is fresh and what will make better sense now moving forward,” said Nichols.
Nichols says the community is lucky to have had the DARE Program. He says it has helped to bridge relationships
between students and law enforcement. Nichols also wants the community to know that the underlying effort will not go away.
“We are going to be engaged with our school district. Not doing anything with our school district is not an option. We are in this together. The world is changing and the safety and security of our kids is just the top of the list for us whether it be talk about school bus safety or anything else. We will have some type of partnership with the school district. They’ve been very clear on that as well, the superintendent and everybody has been very wonderful as we’re working through this and we’ll keep the conversation going. Again, DARE has been incredibly popular here and has worked for Seguin but I think we owe to the community. We owe it to the kids coming up, is there something better? Is there something different that addresses today’s society. Things have changed a lot. Is there something that may be better. So, we’ll take the next 10 to 12 months and look at it and come up with something next fall. We’ll see what rolls out,” said Nichols.
The DARE Program over the years has provided the law enforcement curriculum to 10 area schools. They include the seven Seguin ISD elementary schools, St. James Catholic School, Southwest Prepatory School and Navarro Intermediate School. Again, this year’s DARE program will continue at each of the schools for this current year commencing with graduation in the spring.
Sean Hoffmann, Seguin ISD executive director of communications, says the district is excited about turning the page to a new chapter in its partnership with the Seguin PD.
“The Seguin ISD has enjoyed a long and healthy relationship with the Seguin Police Department and that’s really been evident throughout the many years in which the DARE program has been in our elementary schools. It’s been a fixture for our fifth graders. However, we certainly support the Seguin Police Department in going in a different direction and we look forward to working with them in the future on prevention partnerships for our students,” said Hoffmann.
All other events currently under the DARE office umbrella will continue to be hosted by the Seguin Police Department. Some of those events include the Halloween Safe House, Blue Santa and the Cinderella Ball.