MANVILLE: Program marks DARE completion for Roosevelt pupils

By Mary Ellen Zangara, Special Writer
   Students at Roosevelt School completed their six-year D.A.R.E. program on Feb. 4 with the official graduation from the program. All fifth graders took part in the ceremony. Teachers, parents and siblings, along with the fourth graders, joined them.
   Officer Craig Jeremiah of the Manville Police department is the D.A.R.E. officer who has been teaching the students for the past six years. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program started in Los Angles in 1983 and came to Manville in 1990.
   Patrolman Jeremiah — Officer Craig, as he is known to the students — began the ceremony by welcoming everyone.
   ”For those who are not familiar with D.A.R.E., the acronym D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Six years ago there was an opening in D.A.R.E. I applied for the spot in D.A.R.E. and I got it. I started out with this class at Weston School and during the past six years, I was able to see this class grow up,” he said.
   ”Through the years there is great improvement. Things got easier and today it is all about them,” he said. “There is a big improvement from when I started with them in kindergarten until now. In second and third grade I made them a promise. I promised you that in the first day of fifth grade DARE, you are getting homework. Didn’t I make that promise? Did I keep that promise? We had homework the first day, got a D.A.R.E workbook and finished that workbook. I give them another workbook and we finished that workbook, some worksheets, some essays and some posters. Now, today, because they did all that work, they are going to be earning their D.A.R.E. certificate.”
   During the D.A.R.E program, Officer Jeremiah said they talked about alcohol, tobacco, drugs like marijuana, peer pressure, bullying, gangs and violence.
   ”Although I have been teaching D.A.R.E. for the past six years, I have seen a decrease in alcohol, tobacco, marijuana amongst teens but bullying has gone up and prescription drugs have gone up,” he said. “Make sure you talk to your children about bullying. There is no room for it in the Borough of Manville; we are not going to tolerate it. There are a lot more policies and laws coming out about it.
   ”My 45 minutes a week per class for the past few months I am not going to be able to do it alone. It has to be reiterated by the staff, teachers, educators and the parents and supported by the community. Hopefully together we will be able to keep this a nice safe town of Manville.”
   In the course of the D.A.R.E. program there were several contests for the students to participate in. One was an essay contest and all the students had to write an essay on “Taking a Stand” against drugs and violence. The essays were judged by the classroom teachers and a winner was chosen from each class.
   Jessica Campos, Kayla Molesko, Taylor Wright, and Melina Campos were the winners. Each of them received a D.A.R.E. windbreaker.
   In Jessica’s essay she wrote, “DARE has taught me a lot of things that will surely help me in life to make wise decisions. Some things that I have learned are about drugs, and how they affect your life, over-the-counter prescriptions, bullying, peer and personal pressure and how to make decisions with the DARE decision-making model.
   ”Bullying is something else we learned in DARE. Bullying doesn’t have to be physical for it can be verbal or emotional. If a child is getting bullied, we learned we can always talk to a teacher or parent for help.”
   Taylor Wright credits Officer Craig with her knowledge of DARE. “I have learned so much from Officer Craig. I am not sure that I can explain it all but I will try. Officer Craig has taught me so much about making healthy and wise decisions. We have talked about medicine having a purpose and should be used properly. Officer Craig taught us that you should NEVER take medicine if you don’t need it. Also that taking too much medicine it could make you sick. That is why you have to be very careful.”
   Another contest was an anti-drug, anti-violence poster contest and there was a winner from each classroom. Jessica Campos, Novena Petryk-Cordi, Dylan Whitenight and Vanessa Ramirez were the winners. All of these students received a $100 savings bond.
   After all the contest winners were announced, the fifth-grade teachers presented their classes with their certificates. Each student was called on stage as their teacher announced their name.