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In a move to combat future substance abuse, the Franklin County School System is returning to an approach that mirrors the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that was abandoned several years ago.

The School Board unanimously approved at its Aug. 14 meeting to offer the Too Good for Drugs program to fifth-graders this academic year.

County Mayor Chris Guess told the board that the county has received a $15,000 grant to fund the program.

The TGFD program is offered through the Institute of Education Sciences, an independent, non-partisan statistics, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

Guess, who is a former Franklin County deputy and former School Board member, told the board that the program will work based on his past experience as a law enforcement officer familiar with the DARE program.

“I can tell you while I’m standing here that it works,” he said, referring to drug-resistance education. “I’ve seen it work.”

School Board Chair CleiJo Walker said she thinks offering TGFD is a step in the right direction.

“I think it’s a great program,” she said.

Guess said TGFD will follow a similar format to DARE which focuses on preventing use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs and violent behavior.

“It’s a lot like DARE, and this can be a successful program if it’s done right,” he said.

Guess said that although DARE was effective while it was being implemented in Franklin County, the state no longer funds it, but it will fund TGFD.

DARE was most prominent in the 1980s and 90s. At the height of its popularity, the program was found in 75 percent of American school districts and was funded by the U.S. government.

The program consists of police officers who make visits to elementary school classrooms, warning children that drugs are harmful and should be refused.

DARE sought to educate children on how to resist peer pressure to take drugs. It also condemned alcohol, tobacco, graffiti and tattoos as the results of peer pressure.

However, a series of scientific studies in the 1990s and 2000s cast doubt on the effectiveness of DARE with some studies concluding the program was harmful or counterproductive.

Years after its effectiveness was cast into doubt, the program remained popular among politicians and many members of the public, in part because of a common intuition that the program ought to work.

Eventually, in the early 2000s, funding for the program was greatly reduced.

Police in the program would sometimes arrive at schools in sports cars seized from drug dealers. The program distributed T-shirts and other items branded with the DARE logo and with anti-drug messages. These items were repurposed by drug culture as ironic statements starting in the 1990s.

TGFD uses a substance-abuse-prevention curriculum that provides education in social and emotional competencies and reduces risk factors, according to the website of the Conduent Healthy Communities Institute, which promotes the program.

TGFD also builds protective aspects that affect students in a particular age group, the website says, adding that instructional strategies include role-playing and modeling, practicing, reinforcing, providing feedback and promoting skills that encourage cooperative learning.

TGFD provides education involving a teacher-and-parent component to make the school and family environments more supportive of drug-free choices, the website says, adding that the program is designed to reduce students’ intentions to use alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.

Studies show that the program significantly reduces the proportion of students with intentions to drink alcohol and smoke, the website says, adding that participants also showed significantly increased use of personal and social skills, increased engagement in prosocial behavior and decreased engagement in inappropriate social behavior.

In one study, from pre- to post-test, the proportion of students with intentions to drink alcohol was significantly reduced in the treatment group compared with the control group, which received a standard physical-education curriculum, the website says.

In a second study, from pre- to post-test, the proportions of students with intentions to drink alcohol and smoke were significantly reduced for the treatment group compared with the wait-list control group, according to the website.

From pre- to post-test, students in the treatment group showed significantly increased use of personal and social skills, increased engagement in prosocial behavior and decreased engagement in inappropriate social behavior compared with students in the wait-list control group, the website says, adding that the results were maintained during a four-month follow-up.

TGFD teaches essential character-development skills to build self-effectiveness, promote healthy development, and academic success, the website says. Those skills include setting reachable goals, making responsible decisions, bonding with others, identifying and managing emotions and communicating effectively.