This year 35 million school children around the world--26 million in the U.S.--will benefit from D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the highly acclaimed program that gives kids the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs, or violence. D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in nearly 75 percent of our nation’s school districts and in more than 53 countries around the world.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teach children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug-and- violence-free lives. The program, which was developed jointly by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District, initially focused on elementary school children. It has now been expanded to include middle school and high school programs.

D.A.R.E. was introduced to Cortez in 1993. Currently the Cortez Police Department has two certified D.A.R.E. officers who instruct every 5th and 7th grade student attending a public school within the RE-1 school district.