Educational Programs

Our com­mu­ni­ty and edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams exist for the ben­e­fit of
the War­ren Coun­ty res­i­dents and busi­ness­es! 

To find out more about host­ing the War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office
in your class­room, your busi­ness or at your event, please con­tact us at (540) 635‑4128

D.A.R.E. PROGRAM

The War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office first pre­sent­ed D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resis­tance Edu­ca­tion) instruc­tion to War­ren Coun­ty pub­lic school stu­dents in 1987.

D.A.R.E. pro­vides train­ing for local police offi­cers instruct­ing stu­dents in school class­rooms with a series of drug and vio­lence pre­ven­tion lessons. These lessons are designed for grades K –12. Cur­rent­ly in the Unit­ed States and around the world, there are over 50,000 trained deputy sher­iffs, town and city police offi­cers, state police offi­cers, mil­i­tary police offi­cers, and defense depart­ment police serv­ing as D.A.R.E. Officers. 

The D.A.R.E. cur­ricu­lum at the fifth grade lev­el includes nine lessons based on sub­stance abuse pre­ven­tion edu­ca­tion, learn­ing the skills need­ed to rec­og­nize and resist the sub­tle and overt pres­sures that may cause young peo­ple to exper­i­ment with drugs, gang, and vio­lent activ­i­ties. Stu­dents are taught pos­i­tive deci­sion mak­ing tech­niques which result in good and healthy outcomes.

D.A.R.E. instruc­tion is pre­sent­ed to approx­i­mate­ly 460 fifth grade stu­dents with­in the War­ren Coun­ty pub­lic schools sys­tem. Also includ­ed in the fifth grade D.A.R.E. pro­gram are an anti-drug and vio­lence poster con­test, a D.A.R.E. essay con­test, D.A.R.E grad­u­a­tion, and a D.A.R.E. Day fun day field trip at the end of each school year.

Vis­i­ta­tion lessons are also pro­vid­ed to 1st thru 4th grade stu­dents. These lessons are based on three vis­i­ta­tions to each grade group, with cur­ricu­lum based on bicy­cle and traf­fic safe­ty, tobac­co abuse and pre­ven­tion, and safe­ty rules for deal­ing with strangers. Vis­i­ta­tion lessons are pro­vid­ed to all five ele­men­tary schools. Over 2,000 pub­lic ele­men­tary school stu­dents receive these lessons each year.

The Mid­dle School D.A.R.E. cur­ricu­lum along with Class Action and Gang Aware­ness and Pre­ven­tion class­es is pre­sent­ed to approx­i­mate­ly 400 7th grade stu­dents annu­al­ly. These class­es are based on a com­bi­na­tion of lessons and sub­jects with top­ics rang­ing from mar­i­jua­na edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion, gang aware­ness and resis­tance, inhalant abuse and dan­gers, and juve­nile law infor­ma­tion. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s D.A.R.E. Pro­gram may be obtained by con­tact­ing the War­ren Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office by call­ing (540) 635‑4128. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the D.A.R.E. pro­gram can also be found on D.A.R.E. America’s web­site at www.dare.org.


VIRGINIA RULES PROGRAM

The War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office Vir­ginia Rules edu­ca­tion pro­gram helps edu­cate our coun­ty’s youth on the laws of the Com­mon­wealth. Deputies con­duct class­es at a 6th through 12th grade lev­el and explain the laws of the state and penal­ties that our youth may face if they com­mit cer­tain crimes. It is the hope of the Office of the Attor­ney Gen­er­al and The War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office that this pro­gram reach­es each child before some­thing neg­a­tive occurs. A par­tial list of top­ics pro­vid­ed include, but are not lim­it­ed to, the following:

  • Intro­duc­tion to Vir­ginia Law: Clas­si­fi­ca­tions of felonies and misdemeanors
  • Rights of par­ents and legal guardians: How well do Vir­ginia teens know the law?
  • Facts about alco­hol, tobac­co and oth­er drugs Teen dri­ving and responsibility
  • Dan­gers of inter­net surfing
  • Crimes against persons
  • Teen vio­lence
  • Gang vio­lence
  • Dat­ing violence
  • Atten­dance at school
  • Bul­ly­ing
  • Crimes against property
  • Mak­ing threats to school prop­er­ty or school personnel

BICYCLE AND TRAFFIC SAFETY

Bike and Traf­fic Safe­ty class­es are pro­vid­ed to all War­ren Coun­ty Pub­lic Schools for stu­dents in grades 1–4. Bike Safe­ty Rodeos are held for local youth annu­al­ly and include the dis­tri­b­u­tion of free bicy­cle hel­mets to chil­dren ages tod­dler through 16. Dur­ing these events, deputies demon­strate how to prop­er­ly wear a bike hel­met and encour­age the chil­dren to wear their hel­mets every time they ride. Sta­tis­tics show that if a child is involved in a bike acci­dent and is wear­ing a prop­er­ly fit­ted bike hel­met, a seri­ous head injury and/or brain injury will be pre­vent­ed eighty-five to nine­ty per­cent of the time. 

Traf­fic safe­ty por­tion of these events include the recog­ni­tion of traf­fic safe­ty signs and stop lights, cor­rect hand sig­nals, impor­tance of safe­ty reflec­tors, and bike rid­ing laws.


DISTRACTED DRIVER VEHICLE

Dis­tract­ed Dri­ver Vehi­cle is an inter­ac­tive tool designed to edu­cate the pub­lic on the dan­gers of dri­ving while dis­tract­ed. Demon­stra­tions are held at var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty events.


ROLL OVER VEHICLE SIMULATOR

Dur­ing Sep­tem­ber 29–30, 2015, Deputies demon­strat­ed the Sher­if­f’s Office’s Rollover Sim­u­la­tor at the AAA Mid-Atlantic IDrive Event. The event was held at Rich­mond Inter­na­tion­al Race­way in Rich­mond, VA and over six hun­dred stu­dents were there dur­ing the two day event.

 Roll Over Vehi­cle Sim­u­la­tor at the 2015 Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty & Well­ness Expo