PRMS Fifth Grade Purple Team Graduates D.A.R.E. Program [VIDEO]

Pearl River Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Morgano told the Purple Team fifth graders at Pearl River Middle School a story Thursday.

He told them how his son passed on going to parties with his friends.

"This went on and on for months and months," Morgano said. "Finally, he said, 'If I go out, they are all drinking. I've got to drink, too. So rather than go to the party and say I don't want to drink and have everybody making fun of me, I just don't go and I blame you. They all know you and they understand."

The story drew a laugh from the crowd celebrating the students' graduation from the 10-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program. The Orange Team fifth graders celebrated their graduation Wednesday. For more details about the program, go here.

The program at Pearl River Middle School is run by two members of the Orangetown Police Department, Officers Scott Silva and Joe Grunski. D.A.R.E. has been in the Orangetown School District since 1989.

In addition to teaching students about the dangers of drugs, alchohol and smoking, the officers also educate them about friendship, peer pressure and advertising. The idea is to give them the information they need to make good choices.

"I know that the most important things that you leraernd are the strategies you ned to protectyourselves from anything bad that could happen to you, whether it be drugs, whether it be an introduction to alcohol from the outside, whether it be just someone that is not doing the right thing by you," said Pearl River Middle School Principal Maria Paese.

Grunski pointed out that there were two new lessons included in the D.A.R.E. curriculum -- over the counter and prescription drug medication safety. Those have been raised as growing concerns at recent Pearl River Board of Education and Orangetown Town Board meetings.