LOCAL SCHOOLS WILL COORDINATE DRUG PROGRAMS

Survey Shows Rise in Student Use

Local health officials and educators are trying to coordinate the drug awareness and prevention curricula at Owensboro and Daviess County public schools next fall, a move they hope will help stem a disturbing trend upward in drug experimentation among local middle and high school students.

The chosen curriculum -- LifeSkills Training -- is a multiyear program that is "science based," can serve students from the ninth to seventh grade or younger and has a national reputation for success, said Gary Hall, senior director of RiverValley Regional Prevention Center.

Officials for both Owensboro and Daviess County school districts have been very receptive to the idea, and if local school councils agree, the new curriculum will be in place in local public schools this fall, Hall said.  David Johnson, director of pupil personnel for Owensboro, and Chuck Green, director of student services for Daviess County, are working with Hall and others on the project.

Johnson and Green were unavailable for comment last week.

Owensboro Catholic School officials have decided to keep a separate, but also effective curriculum titled Smart Moves, he said.

The effort to coordinate drug awareness curriculum comes after the Kentucky Incentive Project, a statewide survey used to gauge adolescent behavior, revealed upward "spikes" in the number of eighth-graders and 10th-graders experimenting with illegal drugs in 2002, Hall said.

Local students had been surveyed before about their drug and alcohol use, but 2002 was the first time all the schools used the same survey in an effort to gather similar data.  The survey will be given again in the fall.

All sixth-, eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders in the Owensboro, Owensboro Catholic and Daviess County school systems took the survey.

One of the next steps now is to coordinate the drug abuse and prevention curriculum at the schools so that, over time, the survey data can paint a more accurate picture of drug use, Hall said.

"Since we all use the KIP survey, it would be better if all schools used the same program," Hall said.  "Over a period of years, we should identify trends.  We don't have enough data to form trends now."

The major cost of the curriculum will be for the student guides and teacher manuals, Hall said.  Much of the costs will be paid through the Daviess County Agency for Substance Abuse Policy, the Daviess County Tobacco Control Coalition and federal grant money provided to the schools, he said.

Community Solutions for Substance Abuse has asked $100,000 for the program from city and county governments, which are deciding how to spend nearly $8 million on new health care initiatives.  The request is part of Community Solution's request for $2.8 million of that money.

Until now, schools have used a variety of drug awareness programs, including Drug Abuse Resistance Education ( D.A.R.E.  ), which has come under fire for being ineffective, said Debbie Zuerner-Johnson, director of Community Solutions.

"Title IV ( federal grants ) will no longer pay for D.A.R.E.," Zuerner-Johnson said.  "It will only pay for science-based curriculum.  Science-based curriculum is that which has been proven through research and strenuous accountability measures that show it has some impact."

LifeSkills has been proven effective and is designed to cover students in both eighth and 10th grades, when drug usage dramatically increases among teens, Zuerner-Johnson said.

For example, the 2002 KIP survey revealed that:

- -- 4 percent of eighth-graders smoke, compared to 16 percent of 10th-graders and 23 percent of 12th-graders.

- -- 3 percent of eighth-graders reported drinking alcohol 40 or more times, compared to 14 percent of 10th-graders and 27 percent of 12th-graders.

- -- 2 percent of eighth-graders reported using marijuana 40 or more times, compared to 11 percent of 10th-graders and 17 percent of 12th-graders.

By the 2006 KIP survey, the data should show significant improvement, Zuerner-Johnson said.  But no one program or curriculum will solve the problems, she said.

"Can we point to the curriculum and say that's what did it?" Zuerner-Johnson said.  "No, but it's part of the picture."