ANOTHER ASSIGNMENT — Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Morgan, who serves as school resource officer at Indian Creek High School, has completed training to become a Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer in the district. -- Contributed

WINTERSVILLE — Indian Creek High School’s school resource officer is adding one more title to his name — the new DARE officer for the district.

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Morgan, who has served as SRO for the past five years, underwent Drug Abuse Resistance Education training on Sept. 8-19 in Columbus. He was among 30 law enforcement officers, including fellow Deputy Ryan Gorby, who serves as SRO at John Gregg Elementary in Bergholz, and Wells Township Police Officer Shawn Starosciak, who is SRO at Buckeye North Elementary in Brilliant. Morgan will work with students at ICHS and Cross Creek Elementary, for now, and potentially add Indian Creek Middle School in the future.

“It was more advanced, and we trained for grades K-12,” he said. “Grades K-2 had a lesson plan that we had to learn and present and with grades 3-8 we talk about peer pressure, drugs, and if you see something, say something. In high school, we talk about the dangers of vaping, smoking and alcohol. You teach them that saying no is OK and you don’t have to follow along and give in to peer pressure.”

He added that he will meet with ICHS Principal Louie Retton and Cross Creek Principal Dan Hartman to schedule the program’s implementation, which should begin early next year. Morgan will be in the buildings each week and conduct 10 lessons, discussing specific topics at each session.

“I will put on a PowerPoint presentation and give out worksheets, and the next week we will discuss them,” he said.

Morgan explained that Sheriff Fred Abdalla sought personnel to undergo the training, and he was one of the staff referred by Capt. Tommy Koehnlein because of his work in the schools.

“He chose me and Gorby because we interact with the kids a lot, and I feel really good about it. It’s really educational and I’m excited to be teaching the kids. I’m ready to teach and think it’s important to have a DARE program. It’s a huge factor in a kid’s life,” Morgan said.

Abdalla hopes to expand DARE throughout the county and have more programs in local schools.

“We have two officers from the sheriff’s office and also Wells Township Police Chief Sean Norman and Officer Shawn Starosciak. Our two officers are among the DARE officers in the county and will start doing the DARE program at Indian Creek and Edison,” the sheriff continued. “We’re starting the program at the first of the year and are pushing it out to all of the districts. We’ll send more deputies to training and make sure it remains in the system for a long time to come.”

And interacting with students is nothing new to Morgan, who has established a rapport with youth by engaging with them daily, addressing some classes about narcotics kits and participating in the high school’s Drunk Busters program led by the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America organization. There, freshmen through seniors visited eight stations in the school gym where they donned simulation goggles mimicking intoxication and fatigue and completed a series of tasks. Morgan joined officials from the Wintersville Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Wintersville Police Department to assist with the obstacles.

Now he hopes to engage with the high school’s Students Against Destructive Decisions organization and get more youth involved to educate them on important issues, while another idea is to instruct teens on using tourniquets to help save lives.

“This DARE program is going to help our kids in the future, starting with the elementary,” he concluded. “If we start there and teach them young, they will know when to make the right decisions. I want to give them the opportunity to do that.”