An important program is starting back up in Jefferson that has been absent for the last five years.

Jefferson Police Officer Mark Wolterman recently became the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) certified instructor. Wolterman is going to lead the DARE program with the fifth graders at Greene County and Paton-Churdan School Districts. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the program focuses on teaching kids different ways to resist nicotine, vaping, and alcohol that they can use later in life. Wolterman believes the DARE program is still needed for kids.

“I think it’s needed everywhere. Just for the fact to just educate these kids on (and) give them ways of how to say no, how to resist, how to avoid certain situations in their life. When it comes to in fifth grade all the way up to being a senior in high school and going through college, we try to just fit it into fifth grade because we see that as the most fundamental part. And to really teach them and get them the roots of this program so they can use it in the future.”     

Wolterman notes the DARE program has evolved from when he took it in school.

“So as a student going through the program I remember it being about drugs. Now teaching it, they’re starting off with alcohol and tobacco, something that the fifth graders might really see compared to, not saying they won’t see it but they’re more commonly going to see alcohol and tobacco before they’re going to be seeing drugs. And then how to resist it rather than how to identify it, and just things like that.”      

Wolterman adds at the end of the program, the kids will receive a certificate and a t-shirt. Wolterman underwent a two week training program at the Iowa Law Enforcement Education Center to be a certified instructor. The last Jefferson Police Officer to be the DARE instructor was in 2018 with Caleb Jans.