The Times

10★★ TIMES/GUIDE Weekend of May 1/2, 1976

Coral Gables High School may lose its PRIDE

By ANA MARIA ALVAREZ Staff Writer "This place helps you get through life," said 17-year-old Linda Gardner, a senior at Coral Gables Senior High School. "I was ready to drop out of school until I came here and I listened to the two sides." Linda is just one of thousands of junior and senior high school students involved in the Professional Resources in Drug Education (PRIDE) program in Dade County schools, one of several programs cut in the tentative school budget. To students who are actively participating in PRIDE, the program is much more than a drug prevention program. It is a place to go for peer and teen counseling. It is a place to rap, a place to drop in, to talk about problems, and find solutions. It is having someone there who cares and can help. At Coral Gables Senior High School, the PRIDE program has become very popular not only among students, but teachers, according to guidance specialist Jane Donelli. "At first, teachers would take little part in the program and the actual discussions themselves, but now they are signing up with their classes. We have groups during all six periods, five days a week," Donelli said. "We have about 500 students in here every week." Gables students meet in a classroom they have decorated with colorful posters and comfortable bean bag chairs. They rap about problems with teachers, parents and among themselves. Students are also trained to become teen counselors at elementary schools. "I've learned so much about teenagers myself since I've been working with them for four years. I see them when they are happy and sad and when they have problems and no one to turn to," said Donelli. "I've also learned that there is good in every single one of them," she said. "This program is not a luxury, it is a vital necessity in teenage development, a humanistic approach to education," she said. "Unless kids feel good about themselves and about what they are doing, we are going to lose them," she added. Under current state funding proposals, local school officials expect to be short $16.9 million. The tentative operating school budget is $366.5 million, and school board members plan to develop a final budget before June 1. Of the 968 positions cut in the tentative budget, 68 are guidance specialists in the PRIDE program. When school board members met April 21, for discussion of the tentative budget, several members, including board Chairman Dr. Ben Sheppard, voiced disapproval over cutting the program. "We need four votes to cut a program and from the discussion last Wednesday, I think most members want to maintain it," said board member Ethel Beckham "It is no longer a drug program, but one which deals with all kinds of problems. If it helps the pupil, and helps the teacher to teach the pupil, I should think it would behoove us not to cut it," she said. Among other cuts in the tentative budget are 56 administrative or specialist level jobs in county and area offices, 44 assistant principal positions, and 251 secretarial and clerical workers. Other recommendations made by Coopers & Lybrand, an outside firm hired to evaluate school system efficiency, were the elimination of 11 visiting teachers, 11 area and county level exceptional child education teachers and 74 reading and meth systems resource researchers as well as 66 systems aides. Another recommended cut of 22 teachers and 22 aides would eliminate centers for Special Instruction for disruptive students in senior high schools. "I see them when they are happy and sad and when they have problems and no one to turn to. And I've learned there is good in every single one of them." Jane Donelli guidance specialist

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