Officers like Pete Donovan of the Evergreen Park Police Department are the reason why the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program works in schools.
The D.A.R.E. program began in Los Angeles in 1983 and rapidly spread across the country. Much of the program’s success, though, rests on the effectiveness of the individual D.A.R.E. officers.
Just ask the pupils Donovan teaches and they will tell you how he is doing.
“He makes the classes fun, and he does a really good job,” said Elise Randick, 11, the 6th-grade class president at Northeast School, 9058 S. California Ave. in Evergreen Park School District 124.
Toni Vicario, 12, graduated from the D.A.R.E. program at her old school before she moved to Evergreen Park, but with Donovan as her teacher she is looking forward to another year of training.
“I think this is going to be my funnest year because Mr. Donovan is a great D.A.R.E. officer,” Toni said.
“He’s really funny, and he’s really cool. He’s really nice too. He doesn’t make you say anything that you don’t want to say in class. Things that are private, he lets you keep private. He doesn’t make you share them.”
Pupils find Donovan not only in their classroom once a week, but visiting during lunch and playing outdoors with them at recess. His easy smile and friendly manner are a big hit.
“We like him and he likes us–we can tell because he hangs around with us,” said Alison Winker, 11, the 6th-grade vice president.
“Pete really, really is swell to the kids,” Principal Ardeen Hoke said.
“I think they see him as a real positive role model. I know they look for him in the neighborhood. When he’s on the 3-to-11 shift, he’s patrolling around here so they see him then.
“Students say when they talk, he remembers their names.”
It is no surprise Donovan is comfortable in the schools. Like the other Evergreen Park D.A.R.E. officers, Jerry Nowicki and Phil Rizzo, he attended District 124 schools. Donovan attended Southwest School and Central Junior High School before going on to Evergreen Park Community High School.
Donovan, 40, a police officer for 10 years, was pleased when the opportunity to become a D.A.R.E. officer came up last year.
“It’s something that I had always wanted to do,” he said.
“I have a little boy and a little girl of my own and I have always been really comfortable working around kids. I teach in our church Sunday school and work in the youth programs there.”
Donovan attended the two-week D.A.R.E. course run by the Illinois State Police in Springfield. Lecturers included teachers and psychologists.
“It probably was one of the most intensive courses I’ve ever taken, as far as book work,” he said.
A practical mastery of the subject matter was required.
“You have to conduct one of the lesson plans before your peers,” he said. “They are all other policemen in the program who are acting like 5th and 6th graders, so that was fun.”
A successful presentation to an actual elementary-school class in Springfield also was required before he passed the training. Last school year was Donovan’s first as a D.A.R.E. instructor at Northeast and Northwest Schools. Despite some initial nervousness, it went fine, he said.
In Evergreen Park schools, D.A.R.E. is taught in 6th grade, the year before the pupils in the district’s four elementary schools move up to Central Junior High School. Donovan teaches six classes, three each at Northeast and Northwest.
“I think it’s a good age,” Donovan said. “They are in an environment here in 6th grade where they have been here, many of them, all the way from kindergarten on up.
“When they go to 7th grade at the junior high there will be all kinds of new kids and new experiences thrown at them at once, and this helps them to prepare.”
While learning about drugs–including alcohol and tobacco–is a chief element of the program, there is more to the training.
“We also talk about how important it is to have good self-esteem, that will give you the ability to say `no,'” Donovan said.
“If you feel good about yourself, then you don’t need drugs. You can more easily say `no’ to supposed friends and people like that.
“We talk about how outside activities are important. If you are involved in activities in school, in your church, in your community, then you’re too busy to get involved in drugs and alcohol.
“We talk about how important it is to hang around with people who feel the same way you do about drugs and alcohol, and how important it is to support one another.”
Being with people who feel the same way and supporting each other isan important part of the program, Hoke said.
“I think when they learn how to say `no’ they are also learning how to make decisions,” she said. “I think it’s important for them as they get up in the grades to know that decisions are going to be harder and to learn how to make them without having to worry that somebody is going to make fun of you.
“Pete has a nice way of helping them understand that they can not do some things and still be cool.”
Donovan also has put D.A.R.E boxes in the six classrooms so pupils can leave messages for him.
“He tells us that if there is something making us uncomfortable and we want to talk to him about it we can leave a note for him,” Ashley Regan said.
“It’s for them to ask me questions,” Donovan said. “It is not necessarily something having to do with drugs; it could be something they are dealing with at home or elsewhere and they are afraid to tell somebody else about it. But a lot of the questions are about what it’s like to be a policeman, so it’s all kinds of questions.
“Some of them I’ll read in the class, but for others I told them I would meet with them on the side and no one else has to know about it.”
Hoke sees Donovan as another adult the pupils can trust.
“If they are troubled and don’t think they can talk to us or don’t want to, they can see Pete,” she said. “I know that he’s very discrete about how he handles those things.”
The D.A.R.E. classes last 17 weeks, with the last three weeks devoted to the pupils writing and sharing essays about what they learned.
“I am always amazed at what the kids get out of the 17 weeks,” Hoke said.
The essays reflect that the students have a firm understanding of how to think problems through, she said.
“I think I am always a little surprised at how well they have learned about how to make positive decisions and the extent of their grasp of effective ways to say `no’ if they are being pressured to do something,” she said.
“Before I was involved with D.A.R.E., I just assumed it was more dealing with only alcohol or drugs that the kids would learn about. Of course, the program does teach them about saying `no’ to those things and the decisions they have to make about drugs, but it also gives them more of a total picture about how to make decisions about everything in their life.”
The last session is a graduation ceremony at the school.
The 4th and 5th graders attend, as do school and municipal officials, the latter often including Mayor Anthony Vacco. High school students who went to Northeast also return to talk about how the D.A.R.E. program lessons affected them.
The turnout is perhaps when one of the strongest lessons of all, Donovan said.
“At the graduation, the kids see that their teachers, their parents and their local leaders are all behind them, that they support them and that they want to succeed,” he said.
“When you get right down to it, it’s finally, in the end, letting the kids know that their entire community is behind them on this D.A.R.E. training that really makes it work.”
