STUDENTS GRADUATE FROM WESTBROOK DARE PROGRAM

WESTBROOK -- Standing in unison wearing light blue D.A.R.E. T-shirts, 81
fifth-graders pledged not to do drugs and respect themselves by singing "I
Will DARE."

The Daisy Ingraham Elementary School students on Wednesday in front of
their parents, relatives and fourth-grade classmates graduated from the
17-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

"The students here today, all 81 of them, have spent a good part of the
last 17 weeks of their educational careers learning one of the most
important lessons of their lives -- the ability to make good decisions when
faced with complex opportunities," said State Police Trooper Julie Martin,
DARE instructor and school resource officer. "In reality, for all of us,
there are few tasks more challenging or difficult."

Martin and the school's other DARE instructor Sgt. Martin Lane have spent
hours talking about personal issues and matters with the students, she said.

"We talked about good decisions and the importance of making them," Martin
said. "We also talked about what can happen when we make an uninformed
decision based on things that we either did not know or had the wrong
information."

In her essay, fifth-grader Maria Risatti said life was like a game. If you
do drugs you go down a chute, she said. If you build up your self-esteem,
you go up a ladder, the student said.

"Sgt. Lane taught us that self-esteem is like a bubble," Risatti said,
adding drugs are like a needle that can pop the bubble and a person loses
control. The student's advice: "Always go up ladders and don't go down chutes."

Ryan MacDonald said in his essay they were taught about the various
pressures -- peer pressure, media pressure and family pressure.

Peer pressure is when people make you do things you do not want to do, he
said. Media pressure makes people use a product that is advertised. Family
pressure is when family members pressure a person to do good or bad things.
MacDonald added, "My family pressures me to do good things."

"Sometimes I think about being a police officer so I can help people make
the right decision," the fifth-grader said.

Lane's message was geared toward the parents who were watching their
children graduate.

"Parents you are the anti-drug," the sergeant said. "You need to be
involved in their daily activities. We need to be involved and stay involved."

Lane, being a parent himself, told the parents they need to know who their
children's friends are, what Web sites they are visiting on the computer,
and who they are talking to on the phone.

"Later on they'll thank you for being nosy parents," he said. "DARE is not
the cure-all. The success will be measured one student at a time. They have
the potential for making the right decisions in future years."

"Did we have a positive impact? Have we done the best we could to present
good options to the students?" Martin asked. "Will the lessons that we have
shared be remembered as these students go forward and face the challenges
of becoming older? Ultimately, we will have to wait and see."

It could be seen Martin and Lane did have an impact on the students.
Following the graduation, the students went up to the troopers, hugged them
and had their photographs taken with them.