TABLE OF CONTENTS *

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK SOUDER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID MCINTOSH, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

STATEMENT OF JUDGE STEPHEN M. SIMS, ALLEN SUPERIOR COURT, FAMILY RELATIONS DIVISION, FT. WAYNE, IN *

STATEMENT OF DR. JEFF H. ABBOTT, SUPERINTENDENT, EAST ALLEN COUNTY SCHOOLS, NEW HAVEN, IN *

STATEMENT OF MR. ALAN MIDDLETON, SUPERINTENDENT, GARRETT-KEYSER-BUTLER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, GARRETT, IN *

STATEMENT OF DR. REX BOLINGER, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, ANGOLA, IN *

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT RINEARSON, SOUTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL, FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FORT WAYNE, IN *

STATEMENT OF MS. PHYLLIS LEWIS, COORDINATOR OF HEALTH PROGRAMS, INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, INDIANAPOLIS, IN

*

STATEMENT OF MS. JEAN POCK, INDIANA COMMUNITIES FOR DRUG-FREE YOUTH, ZIONSVILLE, IN *

STATEMENT OF MR. BEN ROEDERER, SUPERINTENDENT, FREMONT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FREMONT, IN *

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK RICKERD, HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR, WHITKO COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, PIERCETON, IN *

STATEMENT OF SERGEANT DON WISMER, FORT WAYNE POLICE DEPARTMENT, FORT WAYNE, IN. *

 

 

 

APPENDIX A - OPENING STATEMENT AND ADDITONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE MARK SOUDER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

APPENDIX B - MEMORANDUM AND EXHIBITS *

APPENDIX C - STATEMENT OF JUDGE STEPHEN M. SIMS, ALLEN SUPERIOR COURT, FAMILY RELATIONS DIVISION, FT. WAYNE, IN *

APPENDIX D - STATEMENT OF DR. JEFF H. ABBOTT, SUPERINTENDENT, EAST ALLEN COUNTY SCHOOLS, NEW HAVEN, IN *

APPENDIX E - STATEMENT OF MR. ALAN MIDDLETON, SUPERINTENDENT, GARRETT-KEYSER-BUTLER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, GARRETT, IN *

APPENDIX F - STATEMENT OF DR. REX BOLINGER, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, ANGOLA, IN *

APPENDIX G - STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT RINEARSON, SOUTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL, FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FORT WAYNE, IN *

APPENDIX H - STATEMENT OF MS. PHYLLIS LEWIS, COORDINATOR OF HEALTH PROGRAMS, INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, INDIANAPOLIS, IN *

APPENDIX I - STATEMENT OF MS. JEAN POCK, INDIANA COMMUNITIES FOR DRUG-FREE YOUTH, ZIONSVILLE, IN *

APPENDIX J - STATEMENT OF MR. BEN ROEDERER, SUPERINTENDENT, FREMONT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FREMONT, IN *

APPENDIX K - STATEMENT OF MR. MARK RICKERD, HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR, WHITKO COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, PIERCETON, IN *

APPENDIX L - STATEMENT OF SERGEANT DON WISMER, FORT WAYNE POLICE DEPARTMENT, FORT WAYNE, IN *

Table of Indexes *

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in the East Allen County Schools Administration Center Board Room, 1240 SR 930 East, New Haven, Indiana, Hon. Mark Souder presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder and McIntosh.

Mr. Souder. [presiding] The Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families will come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on violence and drug prevention in our schools. I will begin today's hearing with an opening statement, and then turn to Mr. McIntosh if he has any opening comments.

On behalf of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families of the Committee on Education and Workforce, I welcome everyone to today's hearing on school safety and youth drug abuse prevention. I am pleased that Representative David McIntosh, a Member of the Subcommittee, has joined me this morning. I am particularly pleased to see so many of you here today and interested in this issue.

As school begins here for the East Allen County Schools, we are reminded of how important school safety is for our students. The safety of our students is challenged in many ways, including by violence and by drug abuse. We must ensure that the Safe and Drug-Free programs supported by Congress actually promote the safety and well-being of our students.

This Congress, the Committee will reauthorize the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. This act authorizes funds for both violence prevention activities and illegal drug abuse activities. Today we will explore successful prevention efforts in our local schools and communities.

I often hear from people here in the New Haven area and other communities in my congressional district that school safety and drug-abuse prevention is a number one concern. Teachers and parents know that we must develop quality programs that educate our students about the perils of drug abuse and violence. Without a safe and drug-free learning environment, the education of our students is at risk.

I have been compiling a summary of our local schools' Safe and Drug-Free expenditures over the last few years and have met with Safe and Drug-Free Coordinators throughout the State. At the beginning of this year, our Education Advisory Task Force began working with me on issues coming before this Committee, including the reauthorization of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. In the last several months, I, along with Mary Honegger, who is my legislative coordinator in the district, have been able to visit schools in all the counties in this district, and have seen firsthand how our local schools are working effectively to offer all students the best possible education in an environment that discourages violence and illegal drug use. I am encouraged that our local court system and law enforcement officials work with our schools to reinforce the message that students can improve their lives through education.

Violence in the schools is a complex problem. On the one hand, studies show that the rate of violence in schools is not growing. However, students often perceive that they are more susceptible to extreme and non-extreme acts of violence at school.

According to a Department of Justice survey, between 1989 and 1995, the percentage of students ages 12 through 19 who reported a fear of being attacked at school rose from six to nine percent. With the recent school shootings -- and we have had in front of our Committee, kids from Columbine and Springfield, Oregon, and Rice Lake in Washington and Kentucky, and talked to the school teachers who have been in the line of fire, the students who have had friends and relatives killed, and have seen those extreme cases which have promoted this fear.

A few weeks ago, the Federal Government released data from the National 1998 Survey on Drug Abuse. The results of this survey show that we are making headway in preventing youth drug abuse.

The survey found that current use of illicit drugs had dropped from 11.4 percent of youths ages 12 to 17 in 1997, to 9.9 percent in 1998 for this age group. Additionally, the survey found that the rate of first time use of an illegal drug dropped from 1996 to 1997, 79 new users per thousand potential new uses in 1996, down to 64 users per thousand potential new users in 1997.

But as I just pointed out in the press conference, I want to make this point, and I know it sounds political, but it also happens to be factually true, drug abuse would have to be reduced 50 percent to get down to 1995 levels when this Administration took office.

That is a fundamental fact. Interdiction funding was cut. We saw the cocaine in northeast Indiana and elsewhere soar, and the prices drop. The availability and ease -- there is nothing that the school districts can do or our police departments can do when this stuff pours in at the rate it poured in.

Then we had a mixed message coming out of the Administration for two years, the "I can't remember whether I didn't inhale." All this kind of joking approach to it sent a different signal than "just say no." That reversed itself.

Since 1996, in particular, General McCaffrey has taken an aggressive lead on this issue. The Administration has backed it up. There has been very little mixed message. We are starting to see progress again. That is important because the common myth is you can't do anything about drug use. No, action in one direction result in increases. Action in another direction result in decreases. In fact, we have seen that some programs work.

While results of these give us some optimism for some of these programs, I believe to capitalize on these successes we must continue to focus our efforts on those programs that are proven effective. The mission of our schools is to provide our students with a quality education. Yet, students cannot academically achieve when they face violence and drug abuse in their school. Effective drug and violence prevention programs will allow our students to turn their attention to learning.

I am pleased to have many of the school districts in my congressional district represented here today, and look forward to hearing about their Safe and Drug-Free Schools Programs in more detail.

Today's testimony will assist the Committee in developing the best possible plan for supporting local efforts in keeping our youth safe and drug-free. I thank you for your testimony, and I look forward to your comments. I now turn to Congressman McIntosh for any opening statement he may wish to make.

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK SOUDER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX A

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you, Representative Souder. Thank you for calling this meeting. It will be tremendously helpful to us as we go back to Washington after the Labor Day break and begin work on the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act.

Frankly, I am really pleased with the strong turnout we have here and the great panelists. I can't think of any issues that are more important in our schools right now than safety and the elimination of drug use, because that type of environment is essential for the well-being of our children and the ability to educate them in our schools.

As the Committee does work to reauthorize the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, what we are looking for are communities which have been successful in reducing drug use and violence.

I am proud to say, frankly, that Hoosiers have made great strides in this area in recent years. I want you to know that the information that you all have provided Representative Souder goes to use in Washington. He truly is one of the leaders on our Committee on this issue and has been, really, since we got there in 1994. The focus on eliminating illegal drug use and making our schools safe is a cause that he has taken up. In my office, we often call them to find out what is the latest thinking on this and what works. So I was delighted to be able to come here and join him for the hearing.

I am pleased at all the great ideas we have in Indiana. As the Administration puts forward its proposals and Congress looks at reauthorizing the act, one of the things that we need to focus on is what works and how do we create the flexibility that lets different programs work in different areas.

I will share with you two that I have seen in Anderson, both of them in Anderson, one targeted in the inner city called Stop the Violence, where Rudy Porter and the mayor's office and a local councilman -- they essentially got fed up with all the drugs being sold in one of the inner city neighborhoods where there was a school, Shadelin School, right near by.

So they organized the parents, who marched through the community. This was about six years ago. The police put a new sub-station there. They focused a lot of attention on stopping the sale of drugs in that community, and it's worked. I was just back there this fall for a back-to-school parade, and all along the streets, parents came off the porch and said we appreciate what's been done here to focus on cleaning up this neighborhood, and it's a safer place for those children to go to school as well. So it works with community involvement in that area.

Another one in Anderson is -- and I was pleased to see Mr. Middleton come and talk about Garrett's experience, because Don Pesless has started Character Counts in Anderson, and that's had a great effect in some of the more suburban schools, where we're focusing on the need to restore character in our schools and in our curriculum.

So local control, accountability for what works, and parental and community involvement are some of the key issues that we need to focus on. I appreciate, Mark, your willingness to bring forward this hearing today, and I can definitely tell you, all of you here who are participating, this will have an impact as we go back to Washington after Labor Day. Thank you.

Mr. Souder. And now let me go through a little bit about how we do the format in the congressional hearings. By House rules, each witness must limit his or her oral statement to five minutes, but that entire statement will appear in the record. Also, any additional materials that you want to give to us, we can insert them in the record as well.

Based on the questions today, we will leave the record open, say two weeks. If we don't get anything in, we may close it earlier, but we'll say two weeks. Call us if you think something will take a little longer than that to get to us, because we want to make sure we can get it printed as well. But I want to make sure that not only those who are testifying directly today, but others in the audience who want to submit materials and some of the other school district materials, we can get in to build a full hearing book as we work through this process.

Usually we have a light system, a nice green, yellow, and red, but we are going to kind of work with a kitchen timer here.

[Laughter.]

When you hear a buzz, start to wind it up. I am not really going to hold tight to the five minute. We'll go through each of the witnesses, and then I will have five minutes to ask questions, then Dave. Then if we want to do a second round, we'll do that. Then we will move to the second panel.

Mr. McIntosh. You know, if my wife gets a hold of this idea, she’ll have a new use for our kitchen timer.

[Laughter.]

Mr. Souder. Now let me introduce our first panel of witnesses. We will start with Judge Sims, who I won't embarrass by saying the year we were in college together, because we're both really young. You're kids are probably what, five, something like that?

Judge Sims{ XE "Judge Sims"}{ XE "Judge Sims"}. At least five.

Mr. Souder. He is a judge at the Allen Superior Court, Family Relations Division. He, along with Dr. Jeff Abbott, the superintendent of East Allen County Schools, is going to talk about alternative education options in Deer Run Academy, because one of the things I am trying to do in this program, is show the interrelationship between the direct programs that we usually associate with drug abuse prevention and the broader concept of how our schools are actually dealing with this issue.

Mr. Alan Middleton is superintendent of Garrett-Keyser-Butler School District. He is going to particularly focus on the Character Counts Program.

I want to point out to any media present and all those here, every one of these school districts are doing some variation of most of these programs. The mere fact that somebody is concentrating on a particular thing, doesn't mean that they are not doing another part of the program.

Dr. Rex Bolinger is principal of Angola High School. He is going to focus most on the Peer Mediation Program. Then Mr. Robert Rinearson of Southside High School, the Fort Wayne Community Schools; he is a professional conflict mediator, and will talk about mediation, which is probably the fastest growing and interesting way to try to deal with this really high-risk high-level violence that we are seeing in the schools.

Judge Sims, if you could begin.

Judge Sims. Mr. Souder, Mr. McIntosh, thank you. A house divided against itself doesn't stand. Traditionally, the court system has stood independent from the education system, and young people don't have to see those things divided very long before they know where to run between the cracks.

You can have great school systems that hit the limits with regard to the structure that they can impose, with regard to parental participation that they can get. Their ultimate act of discipline is to expel a child. You can have great court systems that could provide structure for young people, and yet we can't fill the content.

We have a compulsory school attendance law in the State of Indiana. Do we really? Because if the child decides that he isn't going to attend, from a normal school he or she will ultimately be expelled. They may be put in a variety of great alternative programs by great schools, and the same child who didn't want to go in the first place will get himself expelled or herself expelled from the alternative schools.

A court only has authority to review a process to see was due process followed in the expulsion. So we had 140 children that were on probation, either formal or informal, who were out of school. What are they doing while they are out of school? From a parent's point of view, I always took the presumption that parents are supposed to run the program, not the juveniles. We can't succeed individually, we simply can't.

Dr. Abbott and the court system came together so that we could form a joint school, a school of ultimate resort, so to speak. Not to be a substitute for all those other wonderful programs that schools are doing. All right? But to allow schools and the courts to partnership so that the court can provide structure, parental participation, maybe even parent training, at the same time the schools are safe.

A young person needs to go to school somewhere. To allow a child to take himself out of school is to allow the child to run the system. That is what has been happening. Those hardcore youth that don't want to attend school, don't. The fact of the matter is, we as parents have been allowing that to happen.

For the first time, I think with the accommodation of East Allen and our court system, we impose a structure and they are taught. There is a direct relationship to the child's behavior and how much structure that young person puts himself in, and the child knows that. They can go to Deer Run. They can be held at maximum security. But they need to go.

The Safe and Drug-Free School monies were used for study tables as well from 3:00 to 5:00. There's a couple of exhibits I want you to see. Serious crime for juveniles -- this is the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention from the Justice Department are releasing this today. It clusters, juvenile crime clusters in hours immediately at the close of school, 3:00. With the monies that have been provided, we in essence have study tables.

Bad things aren't happening with our probationers because they are at school with school teachers and probation officers in the supplement to Deer Run.

I respectfully bring to your attention this memorandum that I have submitted.

[The information follows:]

MEMORANDUM AND EXHIBITS – SEE APPENDIX B

Judge Sims. It is the one suggestion that I have to try to make things a little better. Let me read it. State and Federal funding for remedial education should reserve a certain percentage of funding for joint court educational projects, wherein schools and courts must partnership to qualify for the funding so that a comprehensive network of court-public alternative schools can be formed.

This is not in lieu of all the wonderful things that they are doing, but individually we cannot succeed, and if certain funding is reserved that requires a partnership between the courts and schools systems, then the best of both systems are going to be brought together systemically, organizationally, and regularly. Unless and until we have those bases for partnerships, most certainly we are going to continue going individually and failing.

I don't think I have used my five minutes, but that fundamentally is the point that I wanted to make. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here. I really believe the joint funding requirement is an important niche. With the suggestions, by the way, I also put three things we have to recognize in county detention facilities that are not a holding. They work 12 months a year with high school students, junior high school students, special ed students, emotionally challenged students, and kids that need a GED. Funding needs to appreciate that. Thank you very much.

[The statement of Judge Sims follows:]

STATEMENT OF JUDGE STEPHEN M. SIMS, ALLEN SUPERIOR COURT, FAMILY RELATIONS DIVISION, FT. WAYNE, IN - SEE APPENDIX C

Mr. Souder. Thank you; Dr. Abbott?

Dr. Abbott. Thank you, Congressman. Beginning in the 1997-98 school year, we began a partnership with the Superior Court using monies from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, and we began our study table program, as the Judge indicated. From that has grown a deeper relationship and more continuing relationship, the establishment of the Deer Run Academy.

With this academy, we now can service educationally a lot of kids who were not receiving educational services, who were pretty much running amuck among the streets and in our institutions. With that program, it comes a structured full-day program, serving up to 30 students in grades 9 to 12, who are under supervision of the Superior Court or even on probation. They have all been expelled or they have been otherwise unsuccessful in a traditional academic environment.

That program includes heavy emphasis on language arts and math. It is an academic program, but also includes some things that we don't have an opportunity to do during our regular traditional program, such as the Timberline Challenge, the ropes course, building team work and so forth.

Our goal for these kids is to return them to the home school or to graduate from Deer Run Academy, or to enroll in another East Allen alternative educational option. So we have a variety of different options for these kids.

We have had some good preliminary first-year results. I would emphasize they are preliminary. We are going to do long-term studies follow-up on all these students. But of the students who attended this past school year, of the 19 students, the important statistic in our materials is that zero of them have withdrawn from an educational program.

Either they have gone on to graduate, either they have gone on to another school, or they have taken their GED successfully. All of the kids have been successful at least so far in the academic arena. So we are excited about that, and we want to see on the other kids that return to the home school, were very hopeful that they will have turned around their lives and will have found success.

So we are thrilled to have the opportunity. We agree with the comments we heard out front about the block grants and so forth. We would ask for that flexibility so we can be creative and innovative and solve some of the problems in society. We think the local level, the local school board level is the proper place to do that.

So we respectfully encourage your viewpoints among the Congressmen. Hopefully they will prevail. Thank you.

[The statement of Dr. Abbott follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. JEFF H. ABBOTT, SUPERINTENDENT, EAST ALLEN COUNTY SCHOOLS, NEW HAVEN, IN – SEE APPENDIX D

Mr. Souder. Could you briefly, since you haven't quite used the five minutes, explain how the Drug-Free Schools money is used in the track?

Dr. Abbott. We are using that to fund two certified teachers as steady tutors Monday through Thursday, 3:30 to 5:30, which again, under the Judge's handout, shows that that is the high crime time. We also have a probation officer on-site as well during the study table, so if there is any thought of disruption, there is somebody there immediately if need be to take them right on down to work.

Mr. Souder. Thank you very much; Mr. Middleton?

Mr. Middleton. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to this hearing on the Character Counts! Program of Garrett-Keyser-Butler Community Schools. Character Counts! is a service mark of the Character Counts! Coalition, a project of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, a non-partisan non-profit ethic training and consulting organization.

The Garrett-Keyser-Butler Community Schools became a member of the national Character Counts! Coalition in 1996. The program's development was based on a 1992 summit meeting of educators, youth leaders, religious leaders and ethicists who worked together to identify those basic characteristics that they could all agree on as being essential to the development of good character. These became known as the six pillars of character: trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

The Character Counts! Coalition hopes to combat violence, irresponsibility, and dishonesty, while strengthening the character of the next generation. The program is not associated with any particular religion or ideological agenda other than that of promoting good character through ethical decision making.

The membership includes many well-respected national organizations, such as the American Red Cross, the United Way of America, USA Police Activities League, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, 4-H, Little League Baseball, YMCA of the United States, the National Associations of State Boards of Education, and National Association of Secondary School Principals, to name a few.

We at the Garrett-Keyser-Butler Community Schools have made a commitment to work through the Character Counts! program in an effort to improve the character of our young people. We believe that Character Counts! in personal relationships, in school, at the workplace, and in life. Who you are and what you stand for makes a difference.

Our program was initiated as a response to two surveys. One was done by the Northeast Indiana Private Industry Council, which I have a copy here, which was through the Job Works and Steve Corona. The survey indicated employer-cited skill deficiencies. The top three deficiencies were one, strong work ethic, two, responsibility, and three, team player. These deficiencies made up 35 percent of all employer-cited skill deficiencies.

The other survey was our 1995 Educational Forums conducted by our professional teaching staff at Garrett with local community groups and parents. In this survey, we were looking for responses to high priorities as to what students should know and be able to do at the time that they graduate from high school. The responses can be directly related to one or more of the six pillars of character identified in the Character Counts! Program.

Listed are 15. There were many more than these 15, but I will list them.

One, be considerate of others. Two, be a good listener. Three, meet deadlines. Four, realize consequences for missing deadlines. Five, understanding that they are an important part of whatever they are involved in. Six, be responsible, do the best that you can. Seven, answer a question politely and correctly. Eight, be considerate of others. Nine, compromise. Ten, be able to work in small groups to create a strategy. Eleven, have the skills to deal with constructive criticism in a positive way. Twelve, respect authority. Thirteen, assume responsibility. Fourteen, have a positive attitude. Fifteen, learn that a day's work is a day's work.

As we evaluated the surveys, it was evident we were not helping our students to meet these real world expectations. We choose to look for a strong character education program that held high expectations in promoting character, provide in-service training for our staff, and involve the community as a part of the coalition. The community must be a part of this relationship. Character Counts! has done that for us. We were the first school in Indiana to become a Character Counts! Coalition member.

By being proactive with our School-to-Work initiatives and the Character Counts! program, we have reaped the benefits that seem to have offset much of the violence we have seen in previous years. We believe students in grades kindergarten through grade 12 are part of the solution when it comes to the culture of their school building.

The community also must play an integral role in the Character Counts! program. Parks department programs, 4-H, churches and youth groups all can work together by promoting similar expectations by using the six pillars to assist kids. Many kids really did not know the definition of good character, and now we believe that they have a better idea of what it means. We believe all students can become ambassadors of character.

We support the reauthorization of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. There are then some statements that are listed, and I would like to read two from Principal Donell Housel.

"Character education in schools and communities will be as effective as the emphasis and value assigned to it by society. A program initiated in the early years and modeled for students through high school has potential of reversing the effects of a self-centered and violent-prone society. Every student must assume personal responsibility for the safety and environment of their school and community. With increasing independent and access to unlimited information, they will ultimately be in positions to make decisions that will determine the future for generations."

From Keeman Lobsiger, "As a high school principal, I believe that character education is the primary vehicle in the establishment of a secure, drug-free environment within our communities. The effectiveness of any character education program clearly rests with the degree of commitment demonstrated by the leadership of individual communities."

There are also other statements there from staff. On the last page are several pictures of students in activities that have been conducted at our school with our Character Counts! Program. Thank you.

[The statement of Mr. Middleton follows:]

STATEMENT OF MR. ALAN MIDDLETON, SUPERINTENDENT, GARRETT-KEYSER-BUTLER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, GARRETT, IN – SEE APPENDIX E

Mr. Souder. Thank you; Dr. Bolinger?

Dr. Bolinger. My remarks will be associated with our Peer Mediation Program at Angola High School. But before I mention that, I think I would be remiss to not mention to you that in 1996, the blueprint for changing high schools and bringing them to the next century was funded by the Carnegie Foundation and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, entitled "Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution."

That work has 12 chapters discussing a number of things, from leadership, to technology, to personalizing the high school. We believe at Angola High School, that that is one of the most important segments of this discussion, at least is looking at how we can help students understand that you must resolve conflict in other ways other than through aggression or weapons and so forth.

So as a result of discussions around that document, we have started making a number of changes. I am excited to tell you that the breaking ranks report will go on-line on the World Wide Web, available to all high schools in this nation, this month.

I have been working with Suellen Reed at the Department of Education and others in the State to talk about ways of being able to make this available to all high schools in the State. The exciting thing is not only will it flank each chapter with experts throughout the Nation, but it will allow us to communicate principal to principal throughout the Nation, teacher to teacher, a science teacher in Angola High School with a science teacher in Nebraska, making connections with what's working, what's positive change.

We think the program evaluation is very, very important to begin any new program. So in 1996-1997, that school year we began what we call peer mediation at Angola High School. It in many respects probably is not unlike peer mediation that you may see or mediation rather in a number of settings.

We started collecting lots of data. I will share some of that with you in my report. My written report has at the conclusion a number of statistics that we have followed through the last three years. Personally, as principal of a building, I will tell you that in the 12 years I have been in that building, the last three have basically brought us virtually a violent-free high school or physical kinds of violence is virtually non-existent. I could not report that to you prior to this program.

I cannot say that peer mediation has been the total change, because we have done a number of things to restructure our high school, particularly around the Breaking Ranks report. But certainly it's interesting to note some of the data. I would like to share just a couple of those things with you, if I may.

[Slide.]

We went from _what you see, the number of mediations in 1996, 1997, 10 involving five students, to the following year, 47 involving 20 students_20 mediations involving 47 students, and then finally this past school year, involving 71 students. I look at that increase simply as not necessarily more problems, but the fact that more students are understanding that this method is a way to resolve their issues and problems. It could be anything from rumors to harsh remarks to serious kinds of conflicts or those things that could lead in those directions.

I would like to just share a couple other things. As you see those things going up, we tracked our attendance rates from a baseline in 1994-1995, and again, we only can compare ourselves to ourselves with things that we do in program change, we talk about block cumulative because we changed our structure of our data block schedule. So you will see those kinds of things listed. But this is a very, very important statistic for us, that overall during this time, we have seen attendance improve.

Again, remember the first slide I showed you saw mediations going up. This is our suspension and expulsion rate going down. Again, compared to that 1993-1995 baseline, over two years and the data we collected there and what we're currently seeing. I particularly enjoyed listening to Judge Sims' remarks in that I think it is all about partnerships and standing shoulder-to-shoulder in every community. There are a lot of things that go into this in Angola High School, but I am particularly proud of our graduation rates, increasing as they are, and our dropout rates virtually going to zero.

Mr. Souder. What was the actual number of that last year; 95?

Dr. Bolinger. It was around 97.

[The statement of Dr. Bolinger follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. REX BOLINGER, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, ANGOLA, IN – SEE APPENDIX F

Mr. Souder. Mr. Rinearson?

Mr. Rinearson. Thank you. I'll just read from my statement I guess. For the past 20 years, I have worked with teenagers who have either found themselves or placed themselves in at-risk or perilous situations. In 1979 through 1996, I worked with the Indiana Department of Corrections Juvenile Division, with male juvenile delinquents adjudicated into the criminal justice system for crimes they committed in their home jurisdictions. I served in the capacity of correctional counselor, along with the lateral assignment of gang information coordinator.

In February of 1996, I accepted a position with the Fort Wayne Community Schools Corporation as a professional conflict mediator. The conflict mediation program was a newly established initiative introduced into the school system by current superintendent Dr. Thomas Faller Fin.

In my role as conflict mediator, I implement a peer mediation program at the high school level and serve as consultant to the mediation programs in the elementary and middle schools that are located in my high school's attendance area. At the onset of the program, I was skeptical about the impact of the mediation process on all students. Having worked with delinquent populations, I was not convinced that the mediation process could offer both temporary solutions to all kinds of conflictual situations and establish a peaceful climate that would be long lasting.

I quickly learned that all types of students embrace the mediation process. Even students who are severely behaviorally challenged perceive mediation as a viable way to deal with conflict. Mediation is more desirable than the negative repercussions experienced from physical altercations which can prove detrimental to their education, their well-being, and possibly even their freedom.

The mediation process is a technique by which the students are brought together to resolve their differences through communication. The mediator serves in the role of the facilitator to help the disputants resolve their problems by way of active listening, open questions, and helping the disputants focus on the issues and not the person sitting across from them. The result is a written agreement, designed by the disputants themselves in which needs of each party are addressed and met. To the layman or cynic, this may sound rather simple. It might also be perceived that the "hard core" kid would resist such a simple alternative. But it is my experience that it's simply not true.

On several occasions, I have dealt with students with past histories of violence, who peacefully and successfully agreed to resolve their differences. Some recent statistics will help you understand the effectiveness of the program. In the 1998-1999 school year, 1,467 mediations were conducted in the programs that house professional mediators. Of these mediations, 1,431 resulted in a signed agreement or 97 percent.

Through follow-up interviews, students reported that the overwhelming majority of agreements were still successful several weeks following the mediation. In other words, no further problems ensued with the other disputant.

In our school corporation, we have eight adult mediators who serve as a part of the mediation team. They are housed in each of our six high schools and in several middle schools. In order to meet the district's increased security concerns, approval was recently given to hire five more professional mediators in order that each high school and middle school in the corporation will have part-time or full-time mediation services. I believe our corporation is a leader in taking this stance in terms of violence prevention.

Peer mediators are an integral part of the mediation program. Student mediators serve in the same capacity as adult mediators. However, they are never placed in volatile situations, but help students work through conflicts and settle such issues as name calling, rumors, and threats. All of our schools, grades kindergarten through 12, have mediation programs that include peer facilitators.

In recent violent events that have surfaced in schools across the country, the perpetrators of the violent acts expressed the feeling of being picked on at school, and not being a part of the school community. The goal of mediation is to provide a peaceful atmosphere of understanding that pervades the entire school experience for all students. When students hear threats or perceive that a student is extremely unhappy with the school situation, they encourage the dissatisfied student to utilize the mediation process as a means of resolving negative feelings.

I strongly recommend that consideration be given to providing the schools with funds to support mediation programs. In partnership with other prevention initiatives, the mediation process is a proven and effective tool to counteract school violence. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT RINEARSON, SOUTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL, FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FORT WAYNE, IN – SEE APPENDIX G

Mr. Souder. We'll let Congressman McIntosh start with the questioning.

Mr. McIntosh. Great. I am sure I will run out of five minutes fast, but Judge Sims, let me ask you about the Deer Run Academy. Is that perceived as being connected with the justice system, with the jail, or is it perceived as being in a school setting?

Judge Sims. It is interesting. I think that it would depend on beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I think that it would depend. We have gotten a letter from a child in particular, who was going through the system, who was an honor's student, who would have been expelled for a year, who indicated that she would be proud to put I graduated from Deer Run Academy on her role. So it did not carry with it a stigma.

The problem that I think Dr. Abbott and I are having is that the kids don't want to leave.

Mr. McIntosh. That's interesting. So is it more structured than the other alternative education?

Judge Sims. Yes. If there is a probation officer there, there is a team there, and if the children were to act out, and during one summer session we had a little bit of that, they can be removed into more structure. That is, it is part of our system, into Wood Use maximum security. So we have a very high attendance rate.

Mr. McIntosh. Is that in the same building?

Judge Sims. No. It is not. But we have probation officers there. So all the Deer Run Academy is backed by all of the normal services that we have at its maximum security unit if we would need it, probation services, and then all the educational services provided.

Mr. McIntosh. How would you compare it to what sometimes is described as a boot camp experience?

Judge Sims. I think that the emphasis is on structure, but the emphasis is that every young person there has a role model, whether you happen to be the gentleman cutting the grass. On the other hand, we set clear parameters and that type of thing. So I think not quite the militaristic approach.

Dr. Abbott. It is almost diametrically opposed to the military approach. It is an informal structure atmosphere. They don't have reveille at 5:00 a.m. The kids come from their home school districts at approximately a normal school starting time, and they are there a little bit later than normal school ending time, but it is a residential program. The atmosphere in the classrooms is informal. I think Congressman Souder spent a morning with us, and I think he saw that, that a lot of the kids refer to their teachers by first name, but not out of disrespect, but out of total respect. So it is a whole different atmosphere than a boot camp.

Judge Sims. If I may, Congressman Souder, Mr. McIntosh.

Mr. McIntosh. Yes.

Judge Sims. The young people also bring their own discipline. They had a young man who spoke out against the teacher. He upset the other students. Part of it is team building. The Timberline course is a course that they do the phys. ed. with that. You have to get through it as a team. No individual can get through it alone. They asked what they were going to do. The teachers explained, "What are you going to do?" To make a long story short, they took the team building that they brought in. They expelled the boy for a week, made him sit when they did certain actions and do remedial work. Then when he came back the next week, they put him on probation. That is a little bit different, I think.

Mr. McIntosh. Interesting.

Do the students receive services like counseling or other things? If so, where do the funds come for that?

Judge Sims. All of the services that we would have through the probation department remain available. So that if a child needs counseling, that type of thing, the probation department working with the parent can cause that to happen. So it would be on a case-by-case basis, but there would be an individual plan that would be effectuated, including bringing the parents in for parent participation plan. The schools can't do that. When joined with the courts, we can call the parents in, we can require them to take the children to counseling, we can require them to go to schools, talk to the teachers, and be respectful during that process. The marriage is what really makes it unique.

Dr. Abbott. A lot of the counseling occurs between the individual classroom teacher and the kids as opposed to specialists. There is such a close relationship that's developed that allows a teacher to serve kind of in that role.

Mr. McIntosh. What is the cost per student that you serve?

Judge Sims. Let me answer that in a -- I haven't done the calculations, but if you look at the materials presented, this from the Department of Justice to be released today, as well as one of the things I got from Judge Payne, he said he couldn't release until September 1. The cost for a child who drops out is, according to our Government, is $1.7 to $2.3 million. So far, all of these children would have been out of school or on their way out of school. So we saved 19 with the cost of the program.

But if we lose them, the minimum cost from Justice figures is $1.7 million to society. So while I don't have the hard figures on that, and certainly it's not cheap, but I can tell you is that it's a bargain.

Mr. McIntosh. Yes. What you were describing there was the cost of not having them in the program.

Judge Sims. If they drop out, in our written materials, if they drop out, it is going to run society between $1.7 million and $2.3 million. What is happening is -- I'm sorry?

Mr. McIntosh. And compare that to the cost of having them in the system.

Judge Sims. Minuscule. Because the fact of the matter is we're spending money. We just haven't been spending it very wisely. What I did within our department-

Mr. McIntosh. I'm actually not looking to criticize. I am just wondering what it is, 10,000? Twenty thousand?

Judge Sims. We have two-

Dr. Abbott. We are just completing our first year, so we are not to the stage where we have got definitive cost numbers, but I can assure you it is more than the cost of a regular education kid. Our closest estimate is, is probably about 25 to 33 percent above the cost of a regular education kid.

Mr. McIntosh. That's all? That's pretty good.

Dr. Abbott. I want to reserve that, however. We will do a comprehensive cost analysis this fall, now that the budget making is done with our business department. We will have those figures available. We will be glad to show you the first year figures when they are completed.

Mr. McIntosh. If that's all it is, that's very impressive.

Dr. Abbott. That is our best estimate at this point.

Mr. McIntosh. Thanks.

Mr. Souder. I want to follow-up for the record with this. Then we will cover the other programs in another round of questioning and make it into a little bit -- a couple of points.

One is that part of the reason I wanted to lead with this, is that to really encourage the type of partnerships that you are talking about, whether in Allen County with Judge Pratt's initiative in trying to get communities in character building and involved in having you with this program, or other examples, what we have seen is this cooperative nature, particularly with the highest risk kids, that we are going to have to accomplish as a society.

As we look over on the Government Reform Committee, which Congressman McIntosh and I are both on as well, and look at how we can do programs better, that is one of the things we need to make sure gets in the legislation, is to force this type of cooperation as part of our criteria if you want any taxpayer dollars, because it's not going to be effectively used otherwise.

Maybe we can lay out for the record -- because we didn't really get a chance to do that -- where is Deer Run? Could you describe the facility a little bit? It's in a rural area as opposed to, you referred to Wood Use Center here, which is in the urban city of Fort Wayne.

For those who read this who don't have any concept of what we're doing here, where the money came from Deer Run, how it evolved, because it didn't initially start this way. It was through the probation office and then it's now evolved into more of an education system. It has always been kind of a -- Ken Watson used to sell this as soft boot camp. Then the education proposal is in addition to this innovative way.

I can just say for the record, the kids really liked it. Also, it was real interesting to talk how they disciplined each other. The problems that they had were the same problems literally that we heard in the schools where they had violence.

In other words, how this escalates to something where somebody brings a gun in is very minor, because a number of them said that they were racially taunted. A number of them had concerns about inferiority, incompetence in education, not being part of the clicks in school, and other kids looking down on them. They were the same things you all are seeing that can suddenly explode into this super violent situation. Yet here, there was a totally different relationship.

Judge Sims. The children took ownership of the system and worked -- part of the learning was to work out. The Deer Run Academy is located northeast of Harlin, Indiana, approximately five miles on State Road 101. It is 110 acre site. Congressman McIntosh, the site was given by donations through the years.

The prosecuting attorney of this county contributed approximately $150,000 from user fees to help get some construction done. We modified some programs, took two staff members that were doing other things and put them out there so we didn't increase our budget for that, in East Allen County school system through funding, brought on a teacher and a teacher's aide, so reassigned. But it's physically 110 acres, with the wooded site as well.

Mr. Souder. Can I ask you one other, more general question, Judge Sims? That is, could you describe the types of kids you are seeing today that are coming in front of your court, and have you seen any pattern differences the last couple of years?

Judge Sims. When I first entered public service, frankly the 12 years as prosecutor, we saw people that I would describe as sociopathic. We saw the one-parent families. Today what I would say is we are seeing a sibling society. We are seeing no parents. Therefore, you hear young people say, you say, "What do you want to be?" They say, "I want to be a probation officer." I didn't get it at first. It is the first time, when they see a probation officer, teacher, that they have had a caring adult. I think one of the things that the courts and the schools have recognized is that the young persons coming above them have no adult, no appropriate adult peer or role model that has an affection for them.

So we need the additional structure to back the schools up. The court is the only system that can assist the schools. When the parents are overwhelmed, we can assist the parent. You know, the 110 pound mom and the 200 pound boy, we can assist that parent, as she's being overwhelmed.

On the other hand, where we simply have a parent who isn't being a parent and they expect society to raise the parent, the school, the court, we can step in and have that parent take the responsibility along with the privilege of parenthood.

Mr. Souder. Mr. Middleton, when you were describing the Character Counts and when we have talked about, you have a somewhat different set of problems in Garrett, which is a small town, more rural area, interesting income mix in some of the schools. Could you describe some of what you are seeing in the kids today and why you felt Character Counts would be helpful?

Mr. Middleton. I think, interesting enough in this, when we met as a staff yesterday in preparation for today, and what Judge Sims just described regarding the relationship of the non-existent parent, or in some cases, the parents that lack parental skills to know much about how to develop in their children, character, talk about those as definitions, was the same that we were talking about why it was important character education was part of our schools, in that there was a description of definitions for them to work from.

Many times our kids will write about character issues. They are not only learning the definition with our pillars of the month as we go through the school year, but it does make a difference in some of the relationships. I know in peer mediation, in the elementary and things like that, they use that as their baseline. They use it as their fundamental guide to solve with solutions, problems that they have.

I think that in Garrett specifically, we have about a 28-percent on free and reduced lunch. We have a very active breakfast program. The visual effects of having the character promotions in our elementary school, in our high school, in our gymnasium, where we are a character counts community, has arisen the level of awareness by the kids to have pride about those issues. The role modeling is incredibly important.

When Judge Sims talked about the probation officer, we feel the same way for our teachers, for athletic coaches. The relationship with the community is the same. I mean the coalition there is very helpful. In the spring of 1998, we had 35 community members go through three days worth of training for lining the coalition and the Character Counts pillars character into their programs, 4-H leaders, youth leaders, softball, across the board in our community.

Systematically, it's not a school issue. It is a community issue along with the school. We have to bond and have coalitions to entertain that the kids are going to hear the same emphasis, whether at the ballpark, at the pool, uptown. You know, those issues, I mean those pillars of character are going to stand tall, and people can relate to them. There is a confidence behind that that wasn't there before. I can tell you that.

What we had was rules before. What we had was consequences before. Now you have the dean of students being able to take that car and sit down and talk with a student on a discipline problem and talk about the relationship that is with character. It's not the end-all, but it sure is a right step in being proactive, in being able to assist students that maybe are lacking the knowledge.

Mr. Souder. Mr. McIntosh?

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you. Let me follow-up, Mr. Middleton. Have you all done any follow-up surveys in the school or the community on character traits to sort of measure the impact?

Mr. Middleton. Yes. Much has been like the testimony we have gotten from staff. But in dealing with the dean of students, is trying to do basically what Dr. Bolinger has done, show if we are starting to see a difference in our patterns. This is now the third year. I can say that hard core evidence, not yet, but we are going to be there soon, because I believe that.

It's very encouraging listening to peer mediation concepts, that this is a very good follow into that, very effective at our secondary school. We are building a new middle school. I think that with the realignment that we have, in another year with K to 4, and 5 to 8, and then 9 to 12 school, that it will pattern itself very easily to be able to quantify it for how many of the incidents and things like that.

Some of the comments are probably as effective, and it's hard to say to you, Congressman, that you feel better about it. But when you have parents tell you that they are aware of it, and that they begin to use the character pillars in their own home, then you begin to realize there is mechanics that are starting to happen. The kids also correct us.

It is really interesting. We in the community, if something is written in the paper and not quite right, we will get called down on it, ``You're not following the pillars of character here, public official.'' So if you are going to stand tall and apply, if you are going to talk it, you better walk it.

I can say no, not at this point, not to the stability I can say it's a win-win. What I can say is--

Mr. McIntosh. When you do, let us know. I am sure both of us would want to know.

I will share with you anecdotally, in Anderson, one of the teachers who was a substitute had not been in the school for a couple years where they started the Character Count program. She came back and said this whole school has been transformed. It works.

Let me ask you, Dr. Bolinger, real quickly so I make sure I understand what you do on the mediation. Is that initiated by a student or will a teacher or a counselor initiate the mediation?

Dr. Bolinger. Our program is primarily peer mediation, in that we have 20 students in our building of 850 right now who are trained over the summer to work with sensitive issues. They do not interject their opinions in mediation sessions. If two students are referred to the office by a teacher, if students refer themselves, our--

Mr. McIntosh. The referral could come from any place?

Dr. Bolinger. It could come from parents, it could come from any number of directions.

Mr. McIntosh. Is it compulsory that the other students participate, since somebody asked for that?

Dr. Bolinger. We often, we require this, if there is a dispute where there might be a suspension either in school or out of school, that you have to go through this to be able to enter back into the school environment.

Mr. McIntosh. But say someone says "I am ticked off about Jim, who did something to me," does Jim have to participate in the mediation?

Dr. Bolinger. We'll bring them both in. They might initially talk with a social worker or counselor. They are given options. This is generally a first one. Virtually in all cases, they will choose this one rather than having to resolve in another manner that seems to be higher level to them.

Mr. McIntosh. Suspension or something like that?

Dr. Bolinger. Or dealing with an assistant principal or something like that.

Mr. McIntosh. Let me ask you one other quick question. On your different measures, have you seen any correlation with academic performance, either on the ISTEP or some other measure?

Dr. Bolinger. I have those. In fact, I have several slides that I could show you, but depending on time, yes. We have seen improvements.

Mr. McIntosh. Please, let us see that too.

Mr. Souder. What you could do is if you want to copy them, we will insert them into the record, because we can do that. Generally would you say that there has been some correlation?

Dr. Bolinger. We are showing highly statistically significant improvement in GPAs, in graduation rates, improvements in SATs. There are a number of reasons. It's not just peer mediation, obviously.

I again refer back to Judge Sims' comments regarding what he is seeing in his courts. I think we are seeing a number of students without adult role models. I heard Ruby Payne say this summer -- she has written lots on poverty and education and second-generation poverty and so forth -- say that one school in Nebraska simply asked each of their teachers to connect personally with their multiple movers and at-risk students, and over three years, raised their achievement scores on standardized tests 15 percentile points, and that's the only change they made.

I mean I think it is highly significant to start personalizing our environment as much as we can.

Mr. McIntosh. It was multiple movers and at-risk?

Dr. Bolinger. Multiple movers and at-risk.

One of the things I heard this summer in a conference with NESSP officials, were that one of the things we know about kids who have committed violent acts in the last three years, have all been multiple movers. They may not be the ones who cause you trouble, but they are disengaged.

This fall we are starting to look very closely and get that information to our faculty members. When we have students move in, I want to know as much about them as I can, where they have been, and connect them quickly with students and teachers in our building, to try to continue that whole aspect of personalization.

Mr. Souder. One of the things in personalization, because we have heard a couple of different types of hearings, both in education and the drug issue, the importance of connecting with at least one person.

Dr. Bolinger. Absolutely.

Mr. Souder. And sometimes the schools, if it's not coordinated at the top, can have multiple people deciding to connect with one person and miss somebody. Do you have a system to make sure somebody connects with each one of those?

Dr. Bolinger. Yes. It is all coordinated through our guidance department. That is initiated with the faculty. They see those lists. In fact, we are asking each faculty member to connect with one of those so we know who that is. Beyond that, we want to link as many students with them as we can. We find that some of those students blend in well, but it's the ones that don't obviously, that we want to keep a close tab on as best we can.

Again, we can only compare ourselves to ourselves. Each one of us have to look at our buildings and say what can we do, what are our set of circumstances, and what adjustments or things can we develop to address those issues.

Mr. Souder. Now if I recall correctly what you had told me earlier this spring was, and this may have changed at the tail end, did you have any false alarms or calls into your school or have to suspend? Like many of our schools in Northeast Indiana did this last spring.

Dr. Bolinger. We didn't have any incidents of false alarms or anything like that. I listened to Michael Plottis, who is the national principal of the year, speak this summer. He spoke to that same issue on Pennsylvania. He said without question, some neighboring schools in that area had problems, but he was convinced it was because of the work they have done to create a positive climate in that building.

I would like to think that we are on that path. It's a journey. It is constantly changing. New people come in. But we talked to a number of students, probably a half dozen, after the Columbine issue because of verbal comments. We have a county-wide and local reaction team that would include mental health individuals and things like that, to respond. Most of those or all of those we found were really students just acting inappropriately, as compared to someone that might be having problems. But of course we had to respond to that.

Mr. Souder. As I recall, you said that you felt a lot of these things were being headed off by the kids themselves, and weren't even necessarily getting to you, partly because in addition to all the carrots, you said that you might have additional days in the spring and you were combining -- and the kids themselves because they had some of these programs, were actually helping head off?

Dr. Bolinger. I agree with that. As school opened this fall, we talked to every class for some time about taking responsibility for their own safety and safety of our school.

We talked about how it might not be a cool thing to rat or tell on somebody if they have tobacco with them or something like that, which is not supposed to happen in school, but that might not be a part of the culture. But when it comes to safety in schools, we cannot do that. I think we had a very good dialogue about what you can do, how you can contact individuals, how you can use our hotline, how you can communicate.

But we have to do that. We believe that school climate and that kind of an association gets at the heart of the issue. We can't overlook the physical things. We have to take precautions around the building. But people can get through metal detectors. People can do a number of things. But the kids know.

One of the issues we knew about, every one of the students that have committed violent acts is that somebody else in that building knew, and what did they do about it. That was really a point that we impressed upon our students again this fall in discussions, and we'll continue to do that.

Mr. Souder. Judge Sims, if I could ask you a quick question that is related and not related. In one of the counties in this district, not in Allen County, one of the schools had gone to the court because they found a student had a list with actual names on it that they wanted to eliminate. But it was decided that the student_it wasn't justified to put him into a probation system. A number of parents were concerned because rumors were flying around that the student was coming back into the school. How do you sort through that decision?

Judge Sims. When matters of concern come to a school's attention or a parent's attention, they will come into an intake officer. There will be an investigation, quite often, with cooperation of the various police agencies.

We did have several of those that came in. In our instance, many of them were on probation. So we took action at that particular point. In fact, some of them were put in secure detention for a period, and we ordered psychological evaluations.

Mr. Souder. Mr. Rinearson, you worked for many years with the gang kids. You said in your testimony you were interested in how it would go beyond, and I thought made a very good case for the importance across the board before kids get into the gangs.

But for the record, Fort Wayne has had a historic problem with gangs, often related to the drug issue. Could you say a little bit -- I mean some of it is just like with the Character Counts, you look at that. If you have grown up in a family like mine, you say boy, this stuff seems just so obvious. Then clearly what we are hearing and seeing around the country as well, it's not so obvious.

The second thing is, is that the immediate reaction of peer mediation, and you can see that by I agree with the principle that hey, the fact that it's going up means kids are resorting to using this. Because you would think that the highest risk kids, particularly the kids often in gangs, and they come in and this is kind of touchy-feely. How do they react to this? Do you see the connects? Could you kind of convert this from a concept of hey this is what we are supposed to do, or kind of role playing here until adults get off our back, to where it actually becomes a habit?

Mr. Rinearson. I think a lot of it has to depend on selling the program. Personally speaking, I work very hard to sell the program.

You also have to understand that some kids who saw me come in the school system knew me from the other system, so right away I was termed ``5-0'' or ``Narc'' or whatever. So I had to work very hard, again, to sell the program. But in order to sell the program, sometimes it took lengthy one-on-ones or small groups to try to convince the kids to look down the line five to ten years from now as to where they saw themselves.

For many of these kids, many of these kids can connect. So many kids have family relatives, friends, whoever, who have already been involved in the criminal justice system. They remember what it was like for them to be in the criminal justice system. So to some degree, they lose some sense of hope or they have a very bleak view of the future.

So in order to sell the mediation program, is look, how can this work for you, right across the board. I will give you two examples. One inside school, and one that happened outside of school. What so many schools have to deal with, are situations that happened outside the walls, but are brought inside. Sometimes we are limited by how we can extend ourselves out there.

One kid I dealt with, I would use the term "hard core" by saying he had multiple arrests, drugs and violence and all that stuff, was very involved in his group, came into me one day, knocked on the door, said, "Bob, you better do something about this because I just walked in the bathroom. I got some guy throwing my signs down on the wall, graffiti, and we're going to get into it." I said, "Great, fine." In other words, he came to me rather than resolving it. Believe me, this kid was very capable of resolving in the other way.

So we got both the guys sit down. It was the idea that look, I don't want no hassle. I don't want to get kicked out of school. I don't need to be bringing my mom into this. Sometimes these guys get very straight about that idea that I don't want to bring relatives into it, especially my mom. I have already caused her enough hurt, let's deal with this. Okay? They came up to a successful agreement.

Another situation I talk about that happened outside. We knew that a local gang leader was going to be getting out of the Indiana Boys School. He was housed because he had had problems with another group. In fact, there was a shooting that took place. So both sides were already getting ready for when this guy was coming out. There were shots fired in the community.

Now in selling the program, I have not only worked very hard, as well as all the adult professional mediators, in selling the program, not just to the kids, but as many times as we can get out there to the community, PTA programs, civic organizations, whatever, that tell them about what we've got going inside the schools.

When this guy was going out, it so happened after school there was quite a bit of violence that affected a lot of the kids who weren't involved in this stuff. I won't go into great detail about this, but it had some very dire effects on the kids.

A parent who was kind of a community leader whose kids themselves were involved in this conflict, gave me a call, ``Bob, we need to do something. We want to set up a meeting between the two groups. Could you be involved?'' Again, this involved a great many students, involving kids from several schools.

We went out to a local church. We had parents. We had law enforcement. We had ministers. We sat down and involved approximately 28 kids between the ages of 15 to 21. Some of these guys were already in school, in colleges in fact. Some were still very heavily involved in the criminal justice system. We did not set our expectations too high. We knew we weren't going to get all these guys out of being involved in criminal activity.

What we were looking for is how can we stop the shootings that were already taking place, the drive-by shootings and stuff like that. We again, in mediation, you try to get to the root of the problem. When did it start? Here is these old guys, and when they all listened about when this started, it happened five years before when some of the guys were as young as 12, 13 years old over a stupid stolen bike. Yet that had progressed that far, to the point where camps were set up, enemies were stated, and the shootings continued over very simple stuff.

But when we were done, everybody agreed, no shooting, no shots fired. I kept very close touch with the probation officers who were involved with some of the guys, as well as police officials. Sure enough, they held to their agreement of the truce. Again, a couple of the guys were involved in several other crimes, got in trouble, but many of the other kids were allowed to complete their education, even into the college areas. The parents were resting easier. They didn't have to worry about teaching their kids how to hit the floor and that kind of stuff, you know, when the shots were fired. So at least we got that out of mediation.

We didn't put our expectations too high. Yet it was an agreement those guys reached. They did reach. We made the terms a little different. We didn't use the term mediation. We used the term ``truce.'' It seemed to work very well. But all the same processes and basics were applied.

Mr. Souder. Do you have any additional?

Mr. McIntosh. Just a quick follow-up. Both in that situation and the description in your testimony, there seems to be an ethic that if they give their word or sign the agreement, that they will keep it.

Mr. Rinearson. To many, most in fact; absolutely most. Understand there is a small percentage, and I believe very strongly in consequences, that may try to manipulate the situation like they manipulated other situations. But I do believe, my opinion is, based on my experiences, that the vast majority of kids, whether they are directly involved in criminal activity or so many kids who are indirectly, cousins who are brought into it that don't want to be a part of it but feel they are forced into it, there's something at stake there.

Mr. McIntosh. What creates that ethics? Is it a sense of honor within their own gang or peers? Is it the parents? Is it something they have internalized already so there are some moral values?

Mr. Rinearson. Yes. I think it's a little bit a combination of both. In fact, interestingly enough, the vast majority of kids I deal with, even though they may be involved in criminal activity, deep or not so deep or whatever, somewhere along the line, someone has talked to them about what's right and wrong. I think to a certain degree, the golden rule is somewhat inherent within many of the kids.

Unfortunately, whether it's through the outside influences or the peer pressure, if you want to call it that, or the media, it's just not the thing to sit there and admit that you care about your future, that you don't want to go out and hurt somebody, that something scares you.

Somewhere along the line, many of these kids have to see that there is a safe avenue. That it's not weak, that you can achieve things through using your head, and not allowing your emotions to overtake you. The mediation format is that safe way to sit down and use your head, and work it out. And again, looking to the future, where am I going to be? This is certainly better than that.

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you; I have no other questions.

Mr. Souder. Thank you. I want to thank the first panel for being here. We will need to get to the second panel here.

I want to make a couple of concluding comments at the end of this first panel. I thought it was really important that in looking at safe and drug-free schools, we acknowledge this is a holistic, comprehensive problem, no simple solution, very closely related to educational quality.

We understand, for example, when you look at Angola, you have got all these computer programs. Many schools in our districts have been very aggressive with that, with reading recovery programs in the early stages. There are all sorts of things that schools are doing.

I also, as you could see, we had a good diverse mix on this first panel, that we tend to look at some of these programs at the Federal level and say the problems are different. They are different to a degree often and the frequency. We need to have enough flexibility for each school system to decide what the degree in flexibility are.

But the truth is, is that my first exposure to some of these ideas was from Judge Payne when he was a judge and came in front of the Children, Youth and Families Committee in the mid-1980s. I was in Watts twice with Lan Watkins, who negotiated the truces between the Bloods and the Crypts in L.A., and also V.G. Guinness, who was working at peer mediation forms in the hardest core things. He said things very similar to what we just heard today. We need to figure out how to allow that kind of flexibility.

Same thing in San Antonio, where they filmed American Me. When you walk through those neighborhoods and you can tell where there is a gang line between the Hispanics, Anglos, and the blacks in L.A., those are different problems than are in Garrett or in Angola. But we have some of those in Fort Wayne and have had it to varying degrees. What we need to do is give enough flexibility, because you are seeing a microcosm in every district in this country, the flexibility of how best to deal with that.

I really appreciate all you have done. We may have some additional written questions as well. Thank you for your contributions this morning.

Let me first welcome our visiting delegation of distinguished guests from Russia. It is a great honor to have you in New Haven, in Northeast Indiana, and with us for a little over a week. We hope you enjoy and learn a lot here. It is a great honor to have you here in Northeast Indiana.

I also want to thank Krisann Pierce, who is from the House Education Committee, who is here today in Fort Wayne. She is the person who is taking the lead on this particular issue.

So if any of you have complaints when the bill is done, you complain to her, not us. It is a great honor to have her here too. We have been working as we develop this and try to figure out how to make sure the money stays in this area, but stays flexible enough that schools can mix and match as we're seeing a lot of how this is going. Also, Amy Adair Horton is here from my Washington staff who works with the Education Committee things, in addition to Mary Honegger, who I referred to earlier.

Let me just repeat, for those of you who may not have heard earlier, we are going a little more relaxed than normal, but basically trying to stay within the five minute rule. We have a kitchen timer rather than an elaborate Washington clock to do that, but if you are in the middle of a point at any point, you can finish up. But we want to try to stay kind of within that because we can draw things out in the questions.

Also, your written statements will appear in the official record. Any additional materials you want to give us, you can give us for the official record. We may ask you additional questions as well, written questions, and we'll hold it open for probably two weeks. We will see whether we need to hold it open that long. So call us past one week if you think something else might be coming in. But I like to give a little more flexibility, at the same time, we want to get this printed so we can use it as we get into the bill.

The first panelist on the second panel is Ms. Phyllis Lewis. She is coordinator of health programs at the Indiana Department of Education. She is in charge of Safe and Drug-Free Schools funding distribution for the State of Indiana. Thank you for coming up here to New Haven today.

Ms. Lewis. Good morning, Representative Mark Souder, Chair of Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families. Thank you for arranging this field hearing in the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana.

Thank you, Representative David McIntosh, for your attendance and support of this effort.

At the Indiana Department of Education, where I am employed to coordinate health programs, my job duties include Title IV, Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities. I want you to know that I am very supportive of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. I also want you to know that good things are happening in Indiana as a result of the continued efforts of Congress. Our overall goal must continue to be one which is a clear, consistent message of no use and no violence for all children and youth. This message must be the basis for all school-based prevention efforts.

This message can then be modeled in the home and supported in the community. A culture is thus created for our children and youth to say "no." Yes, we know that some of our children and youth are using and abusing drugs and performing violent acts. We have intervention strategies for them.

In order to keep the momentum behind this no use message and no violence message, every school corporation needs to be included in any funding proposal. There should be no exclusions. The flexibility of Title IV also needs to be preserved since it has helped schools tailor their programs and activities to meet local needs.

Currently, 293 school corporations receive funds through a grant application process. For four years, a set-aside of 30 percent has been in place for schools of highest need. Range of funds for all schools is from $742 to $273,234.

Last year's funding was decreased 17 percent in Indiana to fund national programs. For local schools this was a tremendous loss of funds. When new initiatives are added to the Title IV program, additional funding should support these initiatives.

We continue to support the coordination of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities grant at the State level. This promotes collaboration with the governor's office and other State agencies, and prevents duplication of effort. It also allows us to identify what successful programs in Indiana look like, and to determine how research-based programs contribute to the total educational program and lead to academic success.

At the State level, we have focused our efforts on staff development, curriculum, instructional strategies, youth development, local site visitations within a mentoring and a consultative model, and additional resources. For the past two years, we have also worked with schools on the implementation of the Principles of Effectiveness, which help them create effective programs.

In developing our approach, the State Department of Education has used the framework of the following theories: Risk and Protective Factors, Hawkins and Catalano; Resiliency, Woolin and Warner; and Developmental Assets, Benson. In addition, schools have had multiple opportunities to learn about other strategies through our annual school team training and regional workshops.

Our training efforts have concentrated on essential drug and violence prevention components, such as: school policy, research theory-based curricula, normative education, skills training, cultural sensitivity, evaluation, staff development, parent and community, and the learning environment with high expectations.

In Indiana, the new Safe Schools and Emergency Preparedness Planning Rule of the Indiana State Board of Education just implemented August 1998, also demonstrates how our State has supported safe schools. Additionally, the department has distributed a checklist for a safe and secure environment to all schools.

[The information follows:]

THE CHECKLIST FOR A SAFE AND SECURE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT PACKAGE FROM THE INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, INDIANAPOLIS, IN, IS ON FILE WITH THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE

Ms. Lewis. The key role then of the Indiana Department of Education is to function as a clearinghouse for schools through coordination, consultation, and support of local efforts.

Encouraging schools to be innovative, as demonstrated by the earlier testimony of school personnel today, verifies the diversity within our State and the ability of schools to be responsive to local needs. Thank you.

[The statement of Ms. Lewis follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. PHYLLIS LEWIS, COORDINATOR OF HEALTH PROGRAMS, INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, INDIANAPOLIS, IN – SEE APPENDIX H

Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.

Our next panelist is Ms. Jean Pock of the Indiana Communities for Drug-Free Youth, Parents Educating Parents. She has been a leader and one of the early national leaders in parental involvement in community-based organizations. It's an honor to have you here in New Haven today.

Ms. Pock. Thank you, Congressman Souder and Congressman McIntosh. I am here today to share my observations and knowledge gained from nearly 20 years experience working with parents and community groups. To help you understand my motivation for embracing the cause of drug-free youth, I will tell you the event that launched me into a career which I was not seeking. You will see that that event remains relevant today.

In June, 1979, my husband, two children, and I moved back to Indiana from Fresno, California. I had soon learned that a few months before we moved to Zionsville, a student had fatally overdosed on drugs in the girls' locker room in the high school.

In the wake of this tragedy, the student editor of the school's newspaper wrote a letter to the editor of the town newspaper informing, admonishing, and challenging parents. In simple summary, "Parents, you don't have a clue what's going on."

Heeding her advice, the town board and school board formed a task force to determine the extent of the problem. They asked me to serve, thinking my experience as a former teacher and counselor would be helpful. After one hour of education, my first reaction was when do we start. Through my work with the task force, I soon learned that the drug dealers were children, not dirty old men, and the parents and others in the community were facilitating the dealing and the use. How? Through naivete, ignorance, and denial.

Following the task force's report to the town, most of us were ready to do something about the problem. Again, taking the young editor's advice in recognizing our own initial ignorance, we researched, prepared and implemented a drug education program for parents. The result, parents and community better equipped and working together to prevent or intervene early in teenage drug use. A tragedy had created a sense of urgency to learn. We had not just increased awareness, we had educated parents.

In 1984, when I became executive director of Indiana Communities for Drug-Free Youth, now doing business as Chances for Youth, I began using that parent drug education information every time I spoke to parents and school groups.

They wanted to know how they could get the information for their ongoing use in their communities. Thus, that program became the foundation for Parents Educating Parents. It is comprised of eight categories of information that will help parents reduce the risk of their children getting involved with alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. Implementation is most effective when parents share this information with one another. Hence, the name Parents Educating Parents.

Now in partnership with the Indiana Department of Education Student Services, Ms. Lewis' department, we go directly to the communities. The evaluations are always outstanding and the follow-up surveys indicate that most people continue to use the materials. In fact, one person who took the training six years ago asked for a new set because hers had worn out.

You have heard the more things change, the more they stay the same. Let me explain. My 20 years experience has afforded me the opportunity to work with two generations of parents. The late 1970s, early 1980s group were characterized by little awareness and shortage of information. Few parents had used alcohol or tobacco during their high school years, and fewer had used illegal drugs.

They couldn't believe their high school child, and certainly not their middle school child, would use any of these drugs. Unfortunately, those parents who discovered their children using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, had to dig for information. Most didn't know where to go for help. To make matters worse, those who found help were often told by the experts du jour to back off, it's only a phase, or you are being too hard on your kids.

Initially, parents followed this bad advice. Watching their children get worse instead of better, and desperate for information, they began their own research. Many parents such as these were founders of parent/community groups throughout Indiana and the Nation. Word of mouth brought them together. With pooled resources, they brought the problem to the top of the national agenda. As you recall Nancy Reagan became our parent in the White House.

Parents of the 1990s have a different profile. Many began using alcohol and tobacco at 15, 16 years of age. Many used illegal drugs after high school, mostly college. Many no longer do, but unfortunately some still use. Some even share their stash or alcohol with their children and other parents' children.

Most think they know all about drugs because they saw or experienced the drug scene or Vietnam. This is not a blanket indictment of this generation. However, my discussions with them reveal that generally what they know does not include accurate information based on scientific research. So, like the previous generation of parents, they too need to be educated.

In spite of the era in which they grew up, most are still naive. Most still deny their children could be using, or worse yet, they look the other way because a little booze or marijuana didn't hurt me. However, they don't realize that their children's use does not parallel their own youthful use. The fact is, kids today are using more alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, more of it, more often, and at younger ages. We now see children already addicted to alcohol and other drugs, or with dangerous patterns of use going into high school, and certainly into college.

Leaders in our communities and nation are concerned about the dumbing down of America, about our educational institutions not producing qualified people. Is there a correlation between this phenomenon and alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use? I don't believe kids are less intelligent. I don't believe teachers are less qualified or less caring. I personally believe that many of the vessels teachers are trying to fill with knowledge are already filled with alcohol and other mind-altering drugs or the anticipation of the next refill.

Let's face it, alcohol is no longer just a beverage. It's an activity. It is even advertised that way. What used to be an activity, fishing, racing, football and so on, is now just an excuse to drink alcohol.

Kids are like sponges, and they are adult wanna-bes. In their quest for their own identify, they are simultaneously observing and listening to the adult world. That is why Congress needs to fund a media campaign specifically targeting under-age drinkers. We need something to call attention to alcohol. Parents think it's readily available. They don't give it too much thought. Because adults filter out much of what we see and hear, we need to admit to ourselves that even we succumb to advertisements and peer pressure to acquire the latest fashions or the cars or the gadgets or whatever is new.

It is time we adults recognize that the problems of youthful alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use, as well as violence, are either created by us or facilitated by us. We adults, and I am referring to every segment of our communities, have the ultimate responsibility for creating an environment in which to raise healthy, drug-free, non-violent children. But the impetus and bottomline of responsibility lies with parents. Parents must create the demand for change. Why? Because parents are everywhere. We are the only segment of society which interfaces with schools, business, government, law enforcement, health community, et cetera.

Parents need to feel listened to, needed, and taken seriously. They need the support from the top, from the mayor to the President. I am still optimistic because public opinion polls still place alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs near the top. However, we need a serious advocate in the bully pulpit for the problems that contribute to nearly every other behavioral problem we have in the country.

We know the use of alcohol and other drugs is statistically linked to homicide, burglary, vehicle crashes, abuse, on and on and on and on. Yet, from our actions, from Washington on down, our actions don't seem to reflect that we have a total understanding of the pervasiveness of the problem.

We all know that this problem can't be solved over night. Therefore, we do need the support and need the reauthorization of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools money. We must remain committed to it and to the problem, just as our forefathers remained committed to the independence of this nation. Let's value parenting and support parents. Let's trust the grassroots nature of the country, because we the people won't fail.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk on behalf of parent education.

[The statement of Ms. Pock follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. JEAN POCK, INDIANA COMMUNITIES FOR DRUG-FREE YOUTH, ZIONSVILLE, IN – SEE APPENDIX I

Mr. Souder. Thank you, Jean.

Next we are going to go to Mr. Ben Roederer, who is superintendent of Fremont Community Schools. He is joined by Gary Baker, the principal of Fremont High School, to talk about their student drug testing program.

Mr. Roederer. We have a mandatory random testing program in which students who are participating in athletics in grades 9-12 in season are part of the pool. Currently, we have about a third of our student population involved in fall athletics.

So we have a high participation rate. The second aspect to it is for students who drive to school, if you are issued a parking permit, you are also included in the pool. The last aspect are students may be voluntarily entered into the pool. That can be done with parent permission and on a form that's filled out and turned in.

We just reviewed some of that today, and we found out that we have almost a third of our students in the high school are already enrolled in the voluntary program. The driving portion should be determined by the end of the week. Numbers are randomly assigned to a student. If you are in for multiple reasons, it doesn't' mean that your name is in two or three times. You are listed one time. Then numbers are randomly drawn. Then the sample is taken at that time. In the attachment was the athletic policy portion that we followed.

Some of the background that we go back to is in 1985, Mr. Baker, who was gracious enough to attend with me, and Mr. Helfrich, came to the school board and first described that they saw a problem that we received on survey results back from the Indiana Prevention Resource Center and that violations in student athletic code seemed to be increasing, and even discipline in schools seemed related to some of those activities, and we needed this to take a step forward and take some type of action that would help reduce those.

So the proposal was brought forward. At that time, there were other schools in the area, McCutcheon and several others, had started the process, and we proceeded.

There were several public meetings established. We had a wide array of opinions. There were those in favor of, those not in favor of, and even with our own board members, we had pro and con. So the community was well represented. We had plenty of opportunities for each of that to be discussed.

At that time a committee was formed. Mr. Bach was a school board member and headed up a committee. They in turn went back and worked on proposals, analyzed what was available, and came back and made a presentation. We ended up with on the first year, we had a voluntary program only, in which in order to participate, it required a parent signature, or if the student was over 18, they could participate on their own. Then the second aspect of it included the athletes. Then last year was the third year, and student drivers became included with this policy also.

At one point, we also had a discipline component that was included. It appears that due to a court decision evolved out of a Colonel Clay system, that removed this aspect or the research and the supporting data behind the reason for doing that, was knocked down in the courts at that point. So that aspect was dropped at this particular time for us, but we still thought it was important enough to proceed. We didn't scrap the whole thing. We continue to go forward.

I know now there are other districts in this district and in this area that have now also participated in and are now joining in. Very often it's for multiple reasons. Sometimes you just have to take time and listen to what the students tell you.

Sometimes they will tell you things and we don't listen hard enough. But one of the items we heard from some of the students is that something needed to be done, and they need help with peer pressure, that that activity -- an interesting comment is that the alcohol has become an activity and not a beverage probably is a very accurate assessment of the way they view a lot of it.

We had several major goals. One was if we could identify students, and we could provide help to them, then we needed to do so. Another major goal was we needed to help with peer pressure. We needed to provide another tool that would provide some type of means that would help resist an improper choice, make a proper choice. We needed to help somehow in the decision making process.

We also recognized that a lot of these decisions are not made in school. They are made outside of school. We can not always be present when that happens. So we felt this policy would also enable us to follow-up on maybe decisions that were made later on and would help you make a decision or a choice.

When we described it, or as I describe it now to other people, I often use a story to relate one of the goals and how we hope this can affect the students' choice. The story that I heard earlier goes back to where a young boy and his grandfather were out flying a kite one day. During this time, the kite flew up in the air.

The grandfather asked the young boy "What are you doing?" The young boy said, "I'm flying a kite." As time went on, the kite flew up higher and was hard to see. The grandfather again asked the boy, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm flying a kite. It's a silly question."

Then it went behind the clouds. The grandfather said, "I can't see the kite. What are you doing now?" He said, "I'm still flying a kite. Grandfather, that's silly. Why would you ask that?" He said, "But I can't see it. How do you know it's there?" The grandson looked up at him and said, "Well, you know it's there because you can feel it pulling on you. You don't always have to see it to know it's there."

So we are hoping that maybe this policy would also pull on you, and help you make that choice.

[The statement of Mr. Roederer follows:]

STATEMENT OF MR. BEN ROEDERER, SUPERINTENDENT, FREMONT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, FREMONT, IN – SEE APPENDIX J

Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Baker, do you want to make any additional comments?

Mr. Baker. Not at this time. Thank you.

Mr. Souder. Thanks. Next we'll go to Mr. Mike Rickerd, who is a high school counselor at Whitko Community Schools, where they have a Frontline Mentoring Program, where they have students mentor other students. I am looking forward to hearing your testimony.

Mr. Rickerd. Each year, teachers, counselors, and administrators observe many freshmen students struggle with adjustment to high school. They often lack a satisfactory support system, exhibit self-destructive behaviors, have difficulty relating to responsible students and adults, seem to have no desire to engage the world in a positive and purposeful manner.

They feel disconnected from the school, other students, and staff, as they move into a larger school population. To meet their basic human need to belong, many of these students will experience negative peer pressures in new ways. The immediate result for them is confusion, insecurity, distraction, truancy, academic failure, and misconduct both in and out of school. This misconduct often involves acts of violence, and the beginnings of serious alcohol and drug abuse.

Each freshman at Whitko High School, which is a rural school near here with an enrollment of approximately 600 students in grades 9 to 12, each freshman is connected to a junior or senior mentor as part of the Frontline Program. These mentors are called "Frontline Team Leaders" and are selected through an application process, based upon their leadership skills, commitment to academic and extracurricular excellence, demonstrated strength of character, desire to be a positive role model, and commitment to truly helping vulnerable freshmen.

Once selected, team leaders are paired with five to seven incoming freshmen, which means that we have approximately 25 to 30 team leaders. Team leaders then meet their incoming freshmen before they are even freshmen, in the spring of their eighth grade year for a day of fun, ice-breaker type activities at the middle school. This way, the eighth graders connect with a positive role model even before entering high school, and also become excited about participation in the Frontline Program.

Team leaders also receive formal training before they are Frontline leaders and meet their freshmen. They attend a full day of training in the spring prior to meeting the new members. This training is given by Dr. Bill Utesh, which he is the director of IPFW's counseling program and also is a counselor at Family Care Center. He has a Ph.D., so it's a very professional, excellent training session.

Team leaders come to appreciate what freshmen will be experiencing and how they can be of assistance in this process. They also learn some basic counseling skills and how to identify indicators of more serious behavioral and emotional issues. Team leaders also meet biweekly throughout the year with the school's counselors, that would be me and Mrs. Inhoff.

This meeting with us prepares the leaders to effectively run weekly team meetings and address any questions and concerns. The weekly team meetings are 20 minutes during the school's home room period, which is after first period, between first and second period.

I plan the activities for the year. The year is broken down essentially into three units. Previously I heard them talk about the Character Counts Program. One of our units is the Character Counts manual, because there are lots of good activities in there which are like 15 minutes long, which is appropriate for the Frontline program.

The honor shirt and Chain Links field trip is an integral part of the Frontline Program. If freshmen complete a list of requirements, they will receive a Frontline T-shirt and be able to take a field trip to Chink Link State Park on a school day in the spring. These requirements include academic criteria, attendance criteria, and a limited number of discipline referrals. Students must also do things such as a community service project, a written paragraph on personal motivation, and obtain information about colleges and careers of interest.

The academic criteria and a limited number of discipline referrals was only recently honored to the honor shirt requirements. In the year following these additions, 17 percent of freshmen failed one or more classes in a semester. This was the first time ever the rate of failure was below 20 percent. The average daily number of freshmen students who are written up for disciplinary infractions also dropped.

The average daily number of freshmen receiving referrals was 2.7 in the year before the honor shirt requirement was added. After its addition, the average was 1.7 freshman referrals per day. Freshman referrals are always primarily, many referrals come from their freshman class, especially early on in the year. So the Frontline honor shirt requirement was hoped to intervene and prevent some of that.

Statistics like this reveal that if students buy into a program and its incentives, which we believe they have, they can begin their high school careers on a positive note. It is our hope that a good start in high school equals a good finish in high school and also in life.

Certainly Whitko High School's Frontline Program is not the end-all formula to solve school violence, drug abuse, and other student misconduct. However, it is my belief that it addresses one of the primary causes of these problems, disconnection. I have stated earlier that we all have a basic need to belong.

Children in primary grades usually belong to a teacher and a classroom of students. By the time they reach intermediate grades or middle school, we begin to disconnect them from the stability of the single teacher in a classroom. The disconnection is made complete when our students enter high school.

Students not only move from room to room, and teacher to teacher each hour, but there are different students in each of these classes. Admittedly, much of this is necessary as we attempt to nurture independently responsible students.

However, fractured relationships typify the lives of many of today's youth. Without a family connection, students will desperately seek to belong to something, anything. The Frontline Program hopes to guide and direct this desire towards positive outlets. When we fail, the result is students that we can all identify as illicit drug users with the potential of committing acts of violence.

Also along the lines of this thinking, I have worked as a mental health counselor for students, previously, before being a guidance counselor, with students, with young people who had been in trouble with the law, and also in a residential group home facility, similar type kids who had been in trouble with the law.

In each and every single success case that I can think of, these kids, when they turned their lives around, were turned onto something, whether it be athletics, drama, some sort of career or you know, they had a goal, they had a future in mind, different than what their past was. In Frontline, that's what we hope to do, get students turned onto something at a very vulnerable time in their life.

So in that way, the Frontline Program is proactive and not just reactive. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK RICKERD, HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR, WHITKO COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, PIERCETON, IN – SEE APPENDIX K

Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.

Last but not least is Sergeant Don Wismer, Fort Wayne Police Department, coordinator for D.A.R.E., probably the nationally best known anti-drug program both here and internationally. Sergeant Wismer?

Sergeant Wismer. Thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you about D.A.R.E. It's something we believe very strongly in. I have served as the supervisor for the Fort Wayne unit for the past three years.

This program did originate in 1983 in Los Angeles, a cooperative effort between the LAPD and the school system there. There are curriculums available for kindergarten through 12th grade. They are in their ninth generation of improvement. As far as I know, they are the only prevention curriculum available for all the grade levels.

Today, D.A.R.E. benefits more than 26 million students in the U.S. We're in more than 300,000 classrooms. It is taught by 40,000 police officers in 80 percent of the school districts. It has been adopted by 51 other countries, which benefits an additional 10 million children.

Full implementation of the entire curriculum, as part of an overall comprehensive effort, is consistent with the latest research on the best approach to reduce drugs and violence. Research has shown that substance abuse usually begins after elementary school. Thus, the D.A.R.E. core curriculum is implemented among children with whom abuse is not a major problem, in the hope that it will not become a problem.

All components of the D.A.R.E. curricula are consistent with sound prevention principles. Even critical studies have found that D.A.R.E. has resulted in improved student knowledge of drug dangers and consequences, increased student social skills, better student attitudes toward police, and stronger attitudes against drug use.

D.A.R.E. has the largest and most consistent delivery system of any drug prevention program. D.A.R.E. officers are continually rated highly for their fidelity in delivering the D.A.R.E. curriculum. Based on research, this curriculum must be uniform and delivered as written to be effective. The training received by the officers conforms to the latest research on delivery, and approaches such as small group discussion, role playing, and other interactive methods are used.

Several studies regarding the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. program have been done. It seems that only those with less than desirable results are ever published. I have included in my written testimony several summaries of studies from across the country that indicate quite strongly that there is an effective drug prevention program. Studies from Ohio State University, Minnesota Institute of Public Health, California State University, the North Marion Oregon School District, and Colorado Springs Schools also credit D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness.

To date, there have been more than 50 independent evaluations that have shown that students learn to resist drugs and violence through the D.A.R.E. core curriculum. Fifty two percent of youth who reported resisting peer pressure to use drugs said they had learned a resistance technique in D.A.R.E.

In California in recent studies, kids reported that in addition to their parents, the D.A.R.E. officers were the greatest influence on their decision not to use illegal substances. Ninety five percent of the students believe that the D.A.R.E. program had influenced their decision not to use drugs.

Perhaps the best evidence comes from individual comments though, that are made by students, parents, and teachers. In my position, I hear comments frequently from the parents who tell me that the D.A.R.E. program was instrumental in keeping their kids off drugs. I hear from teachers who tell me about great relationships that are built between officers and students. Officers who taught the D.A.R.E. curriculum years ago are frequently approached by students that they have had and were told that because of their efforts, it was a major reason why they had chosen to remain drug free.

Kids report to officers that they have been experimenting with some of these substances, but they have stopped after going through the program. I also hear reports from the officers in the classrooms from kids who tell them about decisions to leave gangs or decisions to get more serious about their studies because of the D.A.R.E. officer's instruction. I have been told my parents about tremendous changes in attitudes they have seen in kids.

Additional evidence of D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness might have to do with other issues than drug abuse though. Several times in recent years, because of D.A.R.E. officers' instruction on personal safety and good-touch and bad-touch issues, we have had kids from third grade clear up into middle school that have revealed sexual abuse or other abuse, and they were able to get the help they needed to get out of those situations.

Community policing is highly promoted now. We who are in D.A.R.E. feel that there is community policing at its best. In Fort Wayne, for the 1998-1999 school year, with just eight full-time D.A.R.E. officers, they taught 19,614 students. Because of multiple contacts with these students on the different grade levels, we made 116 positive contacts between the officers and students. That won't take into account contacts with the teachers and school officials and parents.

For the past three years in Fort Wayne, we developed and implemented a summer project that we called D.A.R.E. Summer Extreme Adventures. The Fort Wayne community school principals and case managers selected at-risk students from their summer clubhouse program to participate. Throughout the summer, the youth, along with the D.A.R.E. officers, took part in a variety of challenging events, things such as rock climbing, repelling, canoeing, ropes courses, spelunking, charter fishing, scuba diving, and white water rafting, taken part.

The goals of this program are that after overcoming the challenges that are presented to them through these activities, that the students' self-confidence in themselves will be so strong, that they will more easily be able to resist the pressures of using drugs and getting involved in gangs.

Other goals are to build relationships of trust between the officers and students and parents, to demonstrate for them a positive adult role model, and to show positive alternatives to drug use and gang involvement. This program was funded completely by the Time Corners and Coliseum Lyons Club of Fort Wayne at no cost to the student. We have seen a lot of growth in the lives of these kids with this program. There is a copy of the New Sentinel article in the package you have about our trip to West Virginia.

I have also included a 16-page paper describing the cross-content correlation of the D.A.R.E. core curriculum and how it contributes substantially to Indiana students' entire educational requirements.

Also, a paper done of a study done in 1997 by the Search Institute in Minnesota, where they identified the 40 developmental assets as building blocks to help young people grow up as healthy and responsible adults, to among other things, avoid alcohol, illicit drug use, sexual activity, and violence. I bring that up because in looking at those 40 assets, I think that D.A.R.E. really effectively addresses about 30 of those.

There are other papers included that are letters from Glen Lavont, the president of D.A.R.E. America, and General McCaffrey regarding the principal findings from the just-released National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, in that it indicates that for those aged between 12 and 17, that illicit drug use declined 13 percent, inhalant use dropped almost 50 percent.

Current users of marijuana went down 23 percent, and the same for methamphetamines. For the past two years, as I'm sure you know, it has shown a decline. I think this helps to prove that prevention efforts do work.

As for the D.A.R.E. program, I believe that communities serious about the problem should fully implement the entire curriculum at all grade levels, and that we should lay the groundwork in the elementary years, provide the core curriculum in the fifth or sixth grade, and reinforce that in the middle school and high school years. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF SERGEANT DON WISMER, FORT WAYNE POLICE DEPARTMENT, FORT WAYNE, IN – SEE APPENDIX L

Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.

Would you like to go first?

Mr. McIntosh. Yes. Thank you, Mark. Ms. Lewis, let me ask you briefly what are the total funding levels in Indiana for the Safe and Drug-Free programs?

Ms. Lewis. Are you talking about the current year that just began in July?

Mr. McIntosh. Sure.

Ms. Lewis. All right. It's $6,178,404.

Mr. Souder. And compared to the year before, you said it was a decline?

Ms. Lewis. Well, it's interesting. The amount was more, but the program initiatives made it less. I hope that makes sense. When new program initiatives are added to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, even with that amount of money, then those monies are pulled aside for other program initiatives, such as national programs. So 17 percent was taken out for those two new national programs.

Mr. McIntosh. What were they?

Ms. Lewis. One is called Healthy Initiatives. The other one is for middle school specialists, counselors. I do have both of those, if you would like copies of them.

Mr. McIntosh. Were those mandatory?

Ms. Lewis. When I went to the meeting with the U.S. Department of Education, I was told that 17 percent of our monies would be used for national programs, that that decision had been made at the Federal level.

Mr. McIntosh. Okay. What percentage of the money goes to administrative costs?

Ms. Lewis. Nine percent. Ninety one percent goes out for local schools. That nine percent is for the Department of Education. Only four percent is used for administration. So five percent is used for our State-wide activities, like our Parents Educating Parents and some other initiatives.

Mr. McIntosh. So those are some programs you do State-wide rather than school based?

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. McIntosh. Okay. The other thing you mentioned was the 742 at the low end. Are you required to distribute it to every school that applies or can you say we've got 200 and some applications, but in order to adequately fund these, we can only do 130?

Ms. Lewis. Our belief is that every school should have the opportunity to receive monies. The monies are based upon student enrollment and Title I impact. But in 29 school corporations, because of the way the law is written, 30 percent have to be set aside for those high need schools.

Mr. McIntosh. And that's a Federal requirement?

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. McIntosh. Then the last question along the funding line, are you able to condition any of those in a matching grant type format, that if the school gets outside support in the community, then they will be eligible for those?

Ms. Lewis. No. We do not do that. There are schools that avail themselves of some of the other funding sources through the juvenile court system or the juvenile justice system, also through local coordinating councils who have money through a variety of streams at the county level, and then applying directly for Federal funding through the U.S. Department of Education or other Federal agencies.

Mr. McIntosh. Okay. Thank you.

The other question I had was, I guess for Mr. Rickerd, does the mentoring address certain problems better than others in the school? For example, violence versus drugs, or have you had any insight into that?

Mr. Rickerd. It's really just, I mean like I said, it is a proactive type thing, where we really want to connect the kids into programs in the school, get them involved in different things. I don't know if it addresses anything better. I mean we have an activity directed at, you know, drug use and school violence.

I would say the violence maybe is something that I have seen success with them. This is my second year there, but I just know the program last year, after the Columbine thing, from the Frontline program we had leaders that said, you know, I had students that had made comments about it that may have seemed inappropriate. They referred them to me. The drug use, I have never really heard a referral from Frontline about drug use. So I don't know if kids are less likely to talk about those things to their leaders, to their peers, and so I am less likely to hear about them. Also, probably because they are more concerned that they are going to get in some sort of formal trouble or be expelled.

Mr. McIntosh. Consequences are greater.

Mr. Rickerd. Right.

Mr. McIntosh. I was impressed by your notion of using incentives to reward the kids when they exhibited good behavior. I am a big believer in incentives, so I liked hearing about that.

The other question I had, for Mr. Roederer, did you have any measurement or estimates of drug use before and after the random testing?

Mr. Roederer. The before started with the Indiana Prevention Resource Center. We just received the survey that was completed last year. They complete it, and they complete it on a State-wide basis. So now we have to use the data and start through that. It is a thick binder that we will go through.

I think what I have seen on a personal perception and in conversation with others, it seems smokeless tobacco seems to be increasing, as well as alcohol at the older end. But the other uses seem to have deceased.

Mr. McIntosh. You test for the other uses, but not tobacco and alcohol?

Mr. Roederer. No, we do.

Mr. McIntosh. You test for alcohol?

Mr. Roederer. Yes, but as you know, based on the time period, that is difficult to do.

Mr. McIntosh. Yes. The others stay in the body much longer. That's interesting. So it does affect behavior, if the data shows that that is true.

Did you have any problem getting parental support or community support for the program? If so, what strategies did you use to bring them in and get that support?

Mr. Roederer. I think we had support and at the same time you had questions, and some that may have been opposed. Due to the fact that there were so many public meetings held, I think those questions were addressed and dealt with up-front and in the open. You may not have agreed with an answer, but those topics were covered openly and frequently. I think even the principal -- we had a meeting early in the year, where we invited the parents in. As I said now, we have a voluntary portion, and at the high school level we have almost a third of the student population voluntarily already included in that.

Mr. McIntosh. I think that's great.

Did you consider including the personnel in the system?

Mr. Roederer. They had the option to participate, yes. They can sign up too. We don't necessarily keep data statistics on that, but they also have a voluntary option where they can participate.

Mr. Baker. There are staff both at the middle school and the high school that are in the program voluntarily.

Mr. McIntosh. Did you have any objection from the staff?

Mr. Baker. No, because it's not mandatory at this point. But that would be a different issue.

Mr. McIntosh. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Souder. One of the things I want to make clear is that I don't believe there is any one solution to this type of thing. You have to have the positive, and you also have to have accountability. But I first got involved in the drug testing issue when I was a staffer with Senator Coates after the McCutcheon case and we first made this an allowable usage through an amendment that I drafted and quickly had Teddy Kennedy and the ACLU all over our case on the precise wording. I also worked through a case in Texas where they were trying to do all students, and quickly learned that a lot of these court decisions that schools are nervous about are actually regional court decisions. This has not largely reached the Supreme Court, and everybody is overreacting versus certain judges that may be overturned if somebody appealed it to a larger level.

But I have a couple of questions. One is, we have put finally, we are allowed in our offices to have mandatory drug testing in our congressional offices. We do it random mandatory and use our office budgets. But we had an internal fight, talk about a double standard, of Congress not being allowing us to do drug testing and have accountability.

I have a couple of very factual questions. What kind of drug testing are you using, hair or is it urine?

Mr. Roederer. Urine.

Mr. Souder. What is the approximate cost?

Mr. Roederer. Fifteen dollars per test. A difficulty is the newspaper wrote an article several years ago. The comment was made by the gentleman in the Indiana Prevention Resource Center and it was not a very positive comment in regards to the program and the type of test that was provided. Indeed, it was a very thorough test, and it is a very thorough test. It uses the gas chromatography to follow up and runs the panel screening, and runs a second procedure. So there isn't the chance for a mistake or secondhand smoke or some of those other. It is a very thorough screening. At the same time, if a doctor has prescribed medicines to you, you have that opportunity too.

Mr. Souder. And you give the opportunity beforehand as well?

Mr. Roederer. That's on the sheet, yes.

Mr. Souder. As we have seen this in business increasingly it's gone to this, required it. Bus drivers, truck drivers.

Mr. Roederer. All bus drivers.

Mr. Souder. Your bus drivers?

Mr. Roederer. We have done that for years. We had all administrators part of the pool for years in the school system.

Mr. Souder. Do you in your study, before you put this in, did you see any school district in the country that did not see a reduction in the drug reported problems after they put drug testing in? I have never heard of one.

Mr. Baker. No, I haven't either. One of the things I guess we started out in the McCutcheon situation was when we talked about it on athletic issues, to the athletic director myself when I visited McCutcheon or actually Harrison, and discussed why. One reason they said that they dealt with it and they heard the kids say was it a deterrent, was that it gave them an out if they happened to be in a position where they couldn't save face, they could say, ``Well, I might get drawn next week.''

I will tell you that that's hard to evaluate with facts and criteria, but my grapevine talked to my ear -- I have kids of my own. You hear things. I think that still holds true. How many lives do you save? I don't know. Even if we save one, the program is solid.

Mr. Souder. If I recall correctly, at McCutcheon they implemented the testing because they had had two illogical injuries, I think in baseball. One guy had a ball hit him in the head while he was standing there. Another had a very severe breakage. They decided to try the drug testing, and one-third of their athletes tested positive. Since the time that they put the drug testing in, this is now a couple years old, they have had at most one case in the next seven years. You talk about a dramatic change. The court clearly has upheld at higher levels, testing athletes and cheerleaders because of the risk.

Now you move then to the questions of student driving. Are there legal precedents with this? That's a new angle with me.

Mr. Baker. I'm trying to think which school system started it, but another school corporation started it first. We just followed with that corporation and implemented it last year. I guess the same logic would be that if somebody is not able to participate in athletics safely, they also should not be able to drive a vehicle safely. That is really the philosophy that we followed with that.

Mr. Roederer. That was the push behind that. Is if you are going to operate a vehicle, you should not be under the influence of any other type of substance.

Mr. Souder. Safety of others as well.

Mr. Roederer. Yes. You do run into the issue of these are my civil rights. Well, I have civil rights also as I drive down the road or come through. You would not be under the influence and you would stay on your side. So very often we forget the civil rights of the other half. We emphasize the civil rights of those who are vocal, and sometimes forget there are other civil rights also.

Mr. Souder. Is Anderson appealing the disciplinary?

Mr. Baker. Yes.

Mr. Souder. I know everybody has gone to voluntary.

Mr. McIntosh. Actually, I think they reached an accommodation with ACLU.

Mr. Roederer. That, quite honestly, is any time, and in a lot of the programs, even the probation placement, it seems you frequently find yourself at a hearing that only involves a judge and the lawyers.

Mr. Souder. I want to say to the record, I think this is silly. My son, his high school now has had to change as well, because he was upset because they were going to give you a drug test if you were tardy to school three times. He sometimes likes to sleep a little too much. But I argued that that is a sufficient.

In other words, it is very difficult to establish an absolute correlation, but I don't think it will take a lot of research to establish the correlation that some of these things are correlated with late night partying or other types of things, and that disciplinary problems, if what we have heard from every prosecutor in Northeast Indiana and every sheriff, is that somewhere between 67 percent and 85 percent of every criminal violation in this district is related to drugs. How can you say it's not correlated to disciplinary? I mean we just need to get the data on that.

Mr. Roederer. And it's difficult to provide the testing to accumulate the data for a juvenile.

Mr. McIntosh. Could I interject one quick thing? Well, you have obviously made the decision to implement this. Was the threat of a lawsuit a factor that you had to consider, if only for a budgetary concern?

Mr. Roederer. So be it.

Mr. McIntosh. Would it have been easier for you to decide to implement this if you had been able to get support for defending a lawsuit?

Mr. Roederer. No.

Mr. Souder. Just decide to do it. The districts without the question is who we should ask, not the program.

Mr. Roederer. The goal was can we help our children. I think we strongly followed the belief that when you come through that door, not only are you your mom's and your dad's, but you are also mine and you are his now too. So budgetary questions or legal questions are secondary issues. Could that happen? Sure. Would we be drawn into it? Surely could. Would we back off because of that threat? No.

Mr. McIntosh. The reason I ask was that one of our colleagues, actually John Hostetler, in a different context thought about trying to help institutions like your school system that are battling lawsuits, by providing the funding to help defend it.

Mr. Roederer. I don't' know if you would have to provide the funding to help defend it, but maybe clarify the ground we're playing on. Here are the rules that we are going to follow. This is allowable, so be it. Let's go on, and eliminate the loopholes.

It appears that so many people spend enormous amounts of time finding loopholes instead of does it benefit the child or not benefit the child. Then let's proceed forward.

Mr. Souder. You forgot about the constitutional provision that says that the courts are the Legislative Branch of the Government.

Mr. Roederer. Sometimes on our end, it's not quite clear.

Mr. McIntosh. That is a very good suggestion actually. We could urge that part of this bill establish Congress' view about what is permissible, and be very expansive.

Mr. Roederer. You may provide the rules that you are going to apply or the guidelines.

Mr. Souder. One of the things that Dr. Bolinger had said that, he had a minimal list, and there may be some others. If you could help in this area of you would have the pre-statistics before your programs, and then watch how it develops on suspension, both in school and out of school, expulsion, attendance, graduation, dropout.

We have been trying to figure out how to put some criteria in that don't lead to manipulation by saying a school deciding not to suspend. By having a range of things which wouldn't be solely related to this, if you see the correlation when you do a certain program, these things happen.

Like I say, this isn't the end-all be-all. But the fact is, is that I have heard -- I have been now to over 30 drug hearings since I have been elected to Congress, plus what I as a staffer, and I have heard repeatedly in addition to at the schools, but people come forward, and when we were doing it in small business, of people who said that had their employer not done that, they would have not changed. Spouses who had been abused, teenagers who in effect -- one teenager and his dad had decided to go public in Orlando because of the heroin problem. The father was an elected official. He decided to go public because the things his son said were really devastating. He said "My dad and mom didn't seem to care. My grades started to drop. I started to show up later to school. I couldn't get their attention." His dad was saying, broke down and just said, "Part of my problem was that I didn't want to believe my son could do it. I didn't know how to deal with it. I just wanted to ignore what was happening."

If it hadn't been caught through a test, he would never have been -- he had moved from marijuana to heroin, and they had had like something like 21 deaths in the Orlando area. I mean he could have been one of the dead kids. It's not a matter of trying to be mean here. It is trying to have an accountability component with that.

If they are caught, do you have an effort to try to move them into some sort of treatment and other types of things as well?

Mr. Roederer. Yes, we even have a licensed counselor on staff, one of the counselors we have. There also are assessments available. These are all free of charge. That is a requirement. They also go back into the pool for several more times until they come negative, so that we do provide the follow-ups. Then there's also the athletic participation that goes to the second time and the third time. We do have those steps.

Mr. Souder. Sergeant Wismer, one of the things that might be helpful, because I know the D.A.R.E. program has been under kind of it's almost like random assaults at different places. I'm trying to figure out, in addition to the national debate we're having, it's been a hot issue here in Northeast Indiana, mostly in Allen County where it's been hot. The rest of the places tend to have it and not necessarily as much controversy. That if there would be a way to work with the school system to try to see where you -- I know there's differences. The program keeps changing, which is one of the things that makes it hard to get year-to-year measurement.

The second thing is, is how many age levels, in other words, how complete the execution is. I'm sure there is some differences between schools. So putting those criteria in, that you could have, I assume, almost every school in Allen County has some sort of a suspension figure, expulsion rate, attendance rate, graduation rate, dropout rate, and see if we are seeing any differences in the schools where we have a more comprehensive D.A.R.E. program.

Just it would be interesting to see those numbers, because at some point, in all programs we need to see, and no program can bear total burden on any of these things, whether it's drug testing or D.A.R.E. or mediation, or mentoring, or all of those. But if we can look at what combination seems -- if we're not seeing results, which is what we are under tremendous pressure on. It was almost zeroed out in the last budget to even have Safe and Drug-Free Schools. It was at the tail end of the bell because our data is not coming back very rosy.

We know it's in a relationship, but at some point, because we put this accountability in other programs, we have to have it on these programs too. That would be helpful.

Similar, as you look through, you can see immediately that are questions are coming in, well what impact. It is hard to separate because you look at it in a school counseling situation and say all this is holistic.

Can I ask a couple of questions?

Mr. McIntosh. I finished with mine, so go right ahead.

Mr. Souder. I wanted to with Phyllis, and I appreciate you coming up today from Indianapolis. My understanding is, is that in the $6.2 million, if I can revisit this.

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. Souder. That the middle school funding is, that has to go to urban districts in Indiana? Do you still get the $6.2 million, but it's designated where you must use it in the sub-program?

Ms. Lewis. We receive all of the $6.2 million in Indiana.

Mr. Souder. So it wasn't like it went to a Federal program and then redesignated because some schools have more urban districts?

Ms. Lewis. No. But it is our understanding that some of the language proposals only look at high need districts.

Mr. Souder. There are those proposals, but that's different than law.

Ms. Lewis. Right.

Mr. Souder. Because we Republicans understand in many cases that we lose dollars both in our States and our districts if that happens. So it is both a meritorious, a merit debate and a practical debate of money in your district. But I am trying to understand here that this went to middle schools. My understanding, when we were talking about it is it may have come in the omnibus bill because it didn't come through our committee. The danger when we do an omnibus bill like we do at the end of the year, this was apparently attached to an appropriations bill and didn't move through our committee. On the other hand, we probably took it because we were on the verge of losing the whole category.

Ms. Lewis. Right. I do have copies of both those proposals in my briefcase. I would be glad to leave those with you. We did have some schools that submitted proposals for those dollars but they are very, very competitive. Mostly large urban schools are the ones that received those monies.

Mr. Souder. Now you said in your testimony that you feel every school should be included.

Ms. Lewis. I do.

Mr. Souder. One of our fundamental debates we're having, and the administration has weighed in on the opposite side of that, is that the amount of funds we're giving to some of these districts are so minor that about all they can do is pay for half of a speaker, or a quarter of a counselor, this type of thing. Therefore, we should give the money to you all at the State level, and let you decide through this competitive process so there is enough funds that while a school district might not get it every year, that they would be over time, get a big block that they could do it, and try to develop funding. That's the counter argument. Respond to that for a second.

Ms. Lewis. I am still of the belief that all schools should have the opportunity to participate in this program, because I think it sends the wrong message to those schools who can't participate that even a small amount of money, and we do have some schools who are very creative. They can participate and write a consolidated plan which incorporates Titles I, II, IV, and VI. We have about seven school corporations who are doing that. They can also access other funds.

We also at the State level are aware of some of those needs and try to assist those schools through mini-grants. They might have a specific program or a need, and then we attempt to give them monies that way. We also have the State divided up into the 10 congressional districts, as you know. We identify one school corporation in each of those 10 districts. We implore upon them to be the coordinator district of that specific congressional district. We give small amounts of money so that geographically those schools can address issues that they have in common. That is how some of the information that we have supplied to your office, that we have been able to do that.

Mr. Souder. What is your feeling about if we propose one of the things like this Healthy Initiatives that popped in. One of the things is this was originally Drug-Free Schools. Then it became Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Now we are getting health questions in. How would you feel if we divided it and said half of it had to be directly drug-free, and half could be all other things that keep attaching?

Ms. Lewis. I think you are taking away from the local decision, which we in Indiana believe very much, it's very important that local need assessment ought to determine how the monies are used rather than a proposal and a grant.

Mr. Souder. What if we made the whole thing -- part of my problem is I understand that principle. I advocate that principle. But what we see nationally is most of the Drug-Free money being diverted. We shouldn't call it a drug program if it's turned into a safe schools and healthy schools program. You can debate the merits of a lot of this kind of thing. I had diverse panels here today. The truth is, is that Allen County, Fort Wayne Community Schools, the money is being used in health clinics. It isn't going. Now the argument is, kids who have drug problems will often wind up into that and they commingle funds, and it's very difficult. But it probably wasn't the intent of Congress because it's stretching it.

So what we ought to acknowledge then is, is that to some degree, putting a category of Safe and Drug-Free Schools as opposed to the money into a general pool of just an education block grant is us telling schools what to do. In other words, if they are just going to free float the money back and forth, why not just have an education block grant. That is the dilemma we're talking about. So we are going to do some management of it, but how much.

What about how would you feel and how do you think schools would respond if we said here are some criteria. If you meet these criteria, your suspensions are dropping, you don't have -- the one I like is not only are suspensions, but the kids who attend your school have been arrested less frequently in the community around you. In other words, fewer driver license suspensions of kids who are in your school. If those criteria are dropping, you can take that money and use it in any way you want in your school, not just in drug-free education. Because the truth is, I don't care how to get there. The goal here isn't to say it must have D.A.R.E., it must have drug testing, must have mentors. What I want to see is the drug and alcohol use declines so they can teach education.

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. Souder. Now but the danger here is, is I am trying to think of what the fallacies are of that argument. I wondered if you might point out some, because there are certainly some, I'm sure.

Ms. Lewis. I think any time you establish a list, how inclusive then is it. Then are they weighed or are they all equal. Many of our schools in their reports of suspension, expulsions, already have lower numbers. So then do you delete those who already have numbers that show that what they are doing in combination are already making differences? I think that's really difficult.

I am glad you are in that position and I'm on the recipient end, because I do believe that it's a great, great dilemma.

Mr. Souder. In your office, I know we have this data, how many State dollars are mixed in your office as opposed to Drug-Free Schools money? Does the legislature provide--

Ms. Lewis. It is a very small amount. It can only be spent on curriculum. I don't have the budgetary number for this year, but it ranges around $230,000. It's a very small amount.

Mr. Souder. In the written record, we'll try, with the stuff that Mary Honegger has collected, we will try to make some sense out of the mix. Some of this goes to governor, then mental health funds are mixed in, and it goes down to Bill Bailey.

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. Souder. I have not figured out all this yet, but if we can make a nice little -- because if nothing else, it will show Members of Congress how confusing this is, because these funds are leveraged and then re-leveraged. It is hard to figure out. Do you pay for your drug testing through any Drug-Free Schools money?

Mr. Roederer. That's what we use.

Mr. Souder. Do you know on the D.A.R.E. program how much is Drug-Free money? I don't think it's a lot.

Sergeant Wismer. I know we get a certain amount from the school system, but I don't believe--

Mr. Roederer. We can use a portion of ours to contribute to the D.A.R.E. program.

Mr. McIntosh. Let me interject a quick question also. What does it cost a school system to make an application for the Drug-Free schools money?

Ms. Lewis. There isn't any cost.

Mr. McIntosh. Don't they have personnel time involved in putting together the application?

Ms. Lewis. Yes.

Mr. Souder. There's part that's driven down. But what he is asking more, as you have different programs now that we're designated to say, you said like the middle school's program, the health initiatives program.

Ms. Lewis. Those go directly to the U.S. Department of Education. Those do not come to our office. We make no decisions about those monies.

Mr. McIntosh. So those are national grants?

Ms. Lewis. They are national programs.

Mr. Roederer. But considered part of the State funding.

Mr. McIntosh. They come out of the six_

Mr. Souder. So you don't have control of all your six_

Ms. Lewis. It is taken off of the top. No, we have no control. We don't even know which schools apply.

I don't know, Ben, if you receive the application_

Mr. Roederer. They also in many of those applications have the numbers. You must have a percent of free and reduced lunch in your district. You must have an at-risk index of above. There are a lot of qualifications. You must have English as a Second Language, a percentage high, the qualifications.

Mr. McIntosh. Those are for the Federal grant?

Mr. Roederer. Very often exclude many corporations in Indiana.

Mr. Souder. What did that do to your overhead percentage of the rest? If you take 17 percent off the $6.2, presumably your overhead stayed the same or you laid off people, or what did you do?

Ms. Lewis. We reduced, everybody received the same percentage. The schools received it last year. So this will be their second year of reduced funding. So their total amount was reduced as ours was.

Mr. Souder. By 17 percent?

Ms. Lewis. Right.

Mr. McIntosh. This has been helpful. Let me get back to my question. To get the $742 from you, how much time does a school system have to put in to communicating with your office?

Ms. Lewis. A letter with the amount of money and the grant application is sent to the school district. We have a variety of people in local schools who complete the grants. Sometimes it's a school counselor. Sometimes it's a superintendent. Sometimes it's a principal. Frequently, those people have other grant responsibilities. Some of them write a consolidated plan, so there are four people making decisions about the total amount of money.

I do not have an estimate of the amount of time that it takes for an application to be completed. As new initiatives are added each year, more information then is needed in the grant application.

Mr. McIntosh. So it becomes more complicated?

Ms. Lewis. It does. We used to start with a three-year application process, where the bill was early in inception. Schools just updated it if they had additional information. So they just wrote a three-year grant.

Mr. McIntosh. But now it's a one-year?

Ms. Lewis. One-year.

Mr. McIntosh. Mr. Roederer?

Mr. Roederer. I do it.

Mr. McIntosh. You do it? How long does it take you?

Mr. Roederer. Probably over several days gathering the data and the direction we go. But again, we are in a different situation. We are a smaller corporation, so all of those Title I, Title II, the Eisenhower, all those come into one particular office. They are all done by the same person.

Mr. McIntosh. Great.

Ms. Lewis. The principles of effectiveness did create more information for schools to gather. That was included, you know, for some accountability. We realize the necessity of that.

Mr. Souder. Sergeant Wismer, is most of your money, where is your funding sources? Do you know what mix, some Fort Wayne schools you said.

Sergeant Wismer. The police department actually has no budget for D.A.R.E. The only tax dollars involved would be the officer salaries and decent car and the benefit package and things like that. Anything that we purchase, from the workbooks to handout materials, come from monies that are donated through different organizations.

I started to say earlier that the school system does give us funding for printing and things like that from year to year. It changes. It's between $10,000 and $20,000 typically.

Mr. McIntosh. You have eight full-time officers or officers doing it full-time?

Sergeant Wismer. Yes.

Mr. McIntosh. That's absorbed by the local police authority?

Sergeant Wismer. Their salaries and benefits package, yes.

Mr. Souder. Since you guys make $250,000 a year, that can be--

[Laughter.]

Sergeant Wismer. That's right.

Mr. Souder. I want to correct for the record that was a joke. If there's anybody who is underpaid, it's been our police and fire.

Mr. McIntosh. In fact, we're working on improving that.

Mr. Souder. Police, fire, military, and teachers.

But does anybody else want to add anything before we close? I appreciate all you coming in today. All Ms. Pock's work for many years in the community, and being very involved with the different groups in developing these new community programs as well. I wanted to make sure in this hearing we accented the parent involvement and the teachers with that too.

Do you have any closing comments?

Mr. McIntosh. Just thank you for having this. It has been very helpful to me, and I know it will be very helpful to the Committee.

Mr. Souder. Well, thank you very much for coming. With that, this hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]