Pubdate: Tue, 25 Sep 2007
Source: Ventura County Star (CA)
Copyright: 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co.
Contact:  http://www.venturacountystar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479
Author: Rachel McGrath

OFFICERS GET TO KNOW CAMPUSES

City Trying Program Instead Of DARE

A new program that puts police officers on public  school campuses in 
Thousand Oaks has made a smooth  start, according to school and law 
enforcement  officials.

The city's new School Resource Officer program has  assigned three 
senior deputies to Thousand Oaks,  Westlake and Newbury Park high schools.

The deputies share responsibility for the continuation  school, 
Conejo Valley High.

The school-based officers are "developing relationships  with faculty 
and staff," said Police Chief Dennis  Carpenter.

The school officers also have a positive effect on  policing in the 
wider community by reducing the need  for patrol officers to be 
called out to deal with  campus problems, Carpenter said.

Patrol units made one to two calls a day to each high  school campus 
during the last school year, according to  Senior Deputy Joe Evans, 
who supervises the school  officers.

Now those calls are dealt with by a school-based  officer, with other 
officers providing back-up when  needed, he said.

Evans said the new officers on campus have been warmly  welcomed by 
faculty members and students, and during  the first weeks of the new 
school year there has been a  "great team effort" shown by the police 
department and  the school district, he added.

Earlier this year, the Thousand Oaks City Council  followed a 
recommendation by Carpenter to close the  Drug Abuse Resistance 
Education program in local  elementary schools and replace it with 
the School  Resource Officer program at the high schools.

The two DARE officers were reassigned as school  resource officers, 
and a third officer was brought in.  The city is covering the cost of 
the program.

The elementary school DARE program, created in 1983,  has been cut in 
a number of cities over the past  several years as studies suggested 
it has little effect  on curbing drug and alcohol use. Meanwhile, 
gangs,  fights and weapons have become more prevalent in high 
schools, officials say.

As the new plan was being discussed, officials  predicted the school 
officers would build relationships  with faculty members and 
students, identify at-risk  students and provide a mentoring program 
for them, and  respond to incidents and disturbances on campus.

During the first days of the new school year, the  officers were 
invited into classrooms by teachers to  explain why there is now a 
police officer on each  campus.

The officers are available to visit classrooms to talk  about various 
issues such as drugs awareness, the  dangers of binge drinking and gangs.

"We don't want kids to join gangs and do drugs," Evans  said. "We 
want them to go to college, have jobs and  families."

Evans says the new initiative is better suited to the  current 
climate than the DARE program.

"DARE provided a positive contact with a uniformed  police officer at 
a young age," he said. "Now the  priority is safety issues and in 
that sense, this  program is going to be better than DARE."

Evans says that with school violence on the rise  generally, the role 
of the school officers is  preventive.

"We're not going to wait for the big event to happen,"  he said.

Athol Wong, principal of Newbury Park High School, said  she is happy 
with the positive response to the presence  of Senior Deputy Chad 
Bourget on campus.

"Students are coming up to him and asking him  questions," she said. 
"I think it's going to be the  relationship between the students and 
the officer that  will be the most positive aspect of the program."

Wong says Bourget did question-and-answer sessions  during the 
"discipline talk" given to all classes at  the start of the school year.

Thousand Oaks High School Principal Tim Carpenter is  pleased to have 
Senior Deputy Jeff Oswald at his  school.

"It's great having deputies making positive connections  on campus," he said.

Senior Deputy Jerry Lopez is at Westlake High School.

Although the three officers share responsibility for  Conejo Valley 
High School, Evans hopes that one day  there will be funding for a 
full-time officer at the  continuation school.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart