Nearly 250 DARE officers will be spotted around Pleasanton next week as the California DARE Officers Association and DARE America along with the Pleasanton Police Department host the annual California DARE In-Service Training Conference. The conference starts Tuesday, April 18 and will run until Thursday, April 20 at Hilton Pleasanton at the Club. This is the 10th California training conference.
Officers will spend the days in training workshops focused on improving their teaching and law enforcement skills, said DARE America Regional Director Dale Brown. Classes cover the gamut of topics from maintaining dignity and discipline in the classroom to counterterrorism. Many states require officers to receive up to 24 hours of professional training every two years and the training convention is one way DARE officers can get 20 of those hours at no cost to them or their department, Brown said.
“By coming to this conference, I think the officers will be better able to teach programs and they’ll be better on the streets of their community,” Brown said. “They need to keep all of the skills tuned up because they’re perishable skills. If you don’t use them and tune them up, they diminish.”
Aside from classroom training, the conference is a good chance for officers to network and get advice from their peers.
“They have the chance to talk and ask each other things like, ‘How do you get this done?’ and, ‘What problems are you having in your community?” Brown said.
The officers will also lend a helping hand around Alameda County, visiting sick children at The Children’s Hospital in Oakland and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and meeting with classes at local schools.
“The DARE group is committed to supporting the community where they train by taking part in service projects,” said Captain Dave Spiller of the Pleasanton Police Department. Spiller was formerly a DARE officer and has gone to many of the conferences, which is why he was especially excited when he was told the conference was going to be in Pleasanton this year.
“I got called on the front end and they asked if we’d be interested or supportive, and immediately I said we’d be supportive and as involved as they’d want us to be,” Spiller said. The Pleasanton Police Department was active in helping secure the training location and organizing activities for the officers in their free time and the service project.
One activity that’s a little different this year is the DARE car show. Many DARE officers have specialty vehicles, so on the first day of the conference these vehicles will be displayed and judged. Mayor Jennifer Hosterman is also getting involved by giving a “Mayor’s Award” to the most creative vehicle.
Every year, DARE America looks for cities to host the conference, alternating between northern, southern and central California, Brown said. This year was a Northern California year and when cities were being reviewed, Pleasanton kept coming up.
“We want a place with a strong DARE program and both Pleasanton and Alameda County have strong programs,” Brown said.
Spiller and Pleasanton’s DARE officers Stephanie Green and Ted Young have the special privilege of not only attending the conference, but serving as the host officers, something they are sure to enjoy.
“I’m just looking forward to boasting Pleasanton to DARE officers in our town from all over the state,” Spiller said. “This is a great opportunity and I’m happy to have staff there.”
