Huntington Park : Funds OKd for Anti-Drug Program at Catholic School
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The Huntington Park City Council has voted to spend $1,800 to continue the Police Department’s anti-drug education program at the St. Matthias Catholic Church’s elementary school.
About 120 fifth- and sixth-grade students are participating in the 16-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at St. Matthias, said officer Neal Mongan, who started teaching at St. Matthias about three weeks ago. The students receive DARE instruction three hours a week. Children in other grades also receive limited instruction.
The program teaches children self-esteem and ways to cope with personal problems without using drugs. It also teaches them to resist peer pressure.
Students at some of the public schools in the city--Middleton Street School, Miles Avenue School and Nimitz Junior High--also receive DARE instruction from city police officers.
St. Matthias school officials requested the program. “Just because the kids go to parochial school doesn’t mean they won’t be exposed to the same problems as other kids,” Mongan said.
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