GLENBURN – “Don’t do drugs. If you do, you’ll do bad stuff and might not know it.” That was one of the messages of Red Ribbon Week, which kicked off last week at thousands of schools across the nation.

At the Glenburn School, 35 fourth- and fifth-grade pupils gathered in small groups to craft colorful posters under the watchful eye of their seventh- and eighth-grade poster partners.

Earlier in the morning, the younger pupils had heard the story of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a Southern California narcotics agent murdered by drug traffickers in 1985.

Red Ribbon Week was organized in his honor and is generally observed as part of a larger anti-drug curriculum.

In Glenburn, as in many schools, that larger curriculum for many years has been provided through the high-profile Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, known as D.A.R.E. It is a collaboration between schools and local law enforcement officials.

This year, however, Glenburn is one of several local schools that have dropped D.A.R.E. because of funding difficulties.

Principal Gil Lacroix is a big D.A.R.E. supporter and takes issue with critics who claim there’s little evidence the program has any lasting value.

“The whole key is in the quality of the D.A.R.E. officer,” he said. “If you have an officer who’s a teacher first and a policeman second, then it really works well.”

Somehow the school will beef up its in-house substance abuse prevention curriculum, Lacroix said. But since he’s new on the job, he’s not rushing to make recommendations.

“First, we’ll see how our teachers and social workers pick up the ball” by incorporating more information into existing classes and programs, he said.

Lacroix is impressed with his teaching staff’s resourcefulness in developing low-budget ideas for Red Ribbon Week, which include the poster project, an upbeat concert by the local band Julie and the Bug Boys, and classroom visits from high school students struggling with the consequences of substance abuse.

Angie Landry, who teaches seventh- and eighth-graders at Glenburn, came up with the partnering plan and organized the poster-making event. She was on hand in the noisy classroom, circulating among the groups of pupils working industriously with bright markers.

One group of boys was stalled – Landry paused with them long enough to get them jump-started.

“What are some good reasons not to do drugs?” she asked, scooching down on the tile floor beside them.

“What are some things you can do instead of doing drugs?” Playing baseball, suggested one older youngster. Having good friends, offered another. Landry agreed.

“And you, you’re an excellent student,” she said to one of the boys. “That’s another good reason, isn’t it?” The boys picked up their markers and Landry moved on.

Educator Sari Ohmart co-teaches the younger pupils and says the partnership with older kids is important.

Young pupils really will listen closely to their senior schoolmates, she said, so the anti-drug message has more credibility.

But the older students benefit just as much. “Some of them still act like they’re too cool to do this,” Ohmart said. “They’d never talk about it with their friends. But working with the younger students makes them think about it a little differently.”

Lacroix agreed. “This makes the older students see that they do have a responsibility to be models, to represent themselves in a way that shows the younger kids what they can grow into. And the older kids usually do rise to the occasion – even the ones you don’t think will.”