08/26/2025
For the 38th straight year, the Munster Police Department has begun instruction of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Program in Munster's schools. The program has been presented by our officers since 1988, starting with Officer Terry Jostes. The program provides important safety lessons to children on a variety of different topics depending on their grade level.
The Munster Police Department's D.A.R.E. officers will be visiting students in grades pre-school through 8th grade throughout the school year. While younger students' lessons focus on seat belts, bicycle helmets, calling 911, stranger-danger, internet safety, and bullying, the fifth grade students will participate in the fifth grade core curriculum (which includes drug prevention and many additional life skills) followed by D.A.R.E. Graduation ceremonies and the eighth grade students will participate in the secondary curriculum (which also includes drug prevention, resisting peer pressure, and reinforces what they learned in the core curriculum along with new safety lessons).
In 2021, the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and Prevention Strategies completed its three year, multi-longitudinal evaluation of D.A.R.E.'s keepin' it REAL elementary school prevention education curriculum and found "when compared to virtual control cases, the program had identifiable improvements in both a key psychosocial measure and in terms of deterring the onset of 30-day alcohol use, drunkenness, and va**ng. Outcomes suggest that the delivery of elementary school keepin' it REAL by D.A.R.E. officers is having a positive effect in terms of deterring the onset of alcohol use and va**ng." To read the entire study or more about the curriculum, please visit dare.org.
During the fall semester, the following grades (in the noted schools) will receive instruction from our department (the remaining students will receive instruction in the spring):
--St. Thomas More School - 5th & 8th Grade Students
--St. Paul's Lutheran School - 5th & 8th Grade Students
--Eads, Elliott, and Frank Hammond Elementary School - Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, 1st, & 3rd Grade Students
--Wilbur Wright Middle School - 8th Grade Students (half of them this semester, half next semester)
We look forward to presenting the D.A.R.E. Program once again this school year to the approximately 2,000 Munster students who receive instruction each year and greatly appreciate our program's sponsors for their continued support. We encourage parents to talk with their children about what they are learning in D.A.R.E. throughout this semester so that we can work together to promote safety in our communities.
Eads Elementary School Elliott Elementary School Frank H. Hammond Elementary School St. Thomas More Catholic Church and School-Munster, Indiana St. Paul's Lutheran Church & School, Munster Wilbur Wright Middle School DARE Indiana
