The students and staff of Marlton Elementary School were seeing red — literally — when on Oct. 28, a majority of the student body wore red clothing to promote Red Ribbon Week, the annual, national alcohol, tobacco, drug and violence awareness campaign.
Throughout the week, students across the district had been promoting drug prevention in various ways, and on Oct. 28, the students at Marlton Elementary wore red clothing to coincide with their Red Ribbon Week assembly.
At the assembly, the students hosted a special guest — Niko, a police K9 with the Evesham Township Police Department.
Patrol Officer Matt Divito, Niko’s handler, was also on hand to teach kids about the dangers of drug abuse and show them how Niko helps the police find criminals and drugs.
“Niko is very smart,” Divito said. “He’s smarter than me, that’s why I have him. He makes me smarter. His nose is better than mine. His nose is 100 times better than mine and yours, so when he comes into this room, while you only smell the person next to you, Niko smells everybody.”
Divito showed the kids how Niko takes commands simply through the objects and toys he interacts with, and Divito even had Niko bite a cast.
“Niko is never wrong,” Divito said. “We train every single week on drugs. I can run him by 500 cars, if there are no drugs in those cars, he won’t indicate, he won’t scratch, he won’t bark.”
In addition to wearing red clothing on Oct. 28, Marlton Elementary had other theme days throughout the week, including “putting drugs to sleep” by wearing pajamas, “socking it to drugs” with colorful, mismatched socks, and making sure drugs couldn’t “sneak up” on them by wearing fun sneakers.
School Counselor Eileen Lubertazzo said theme days allow the school to keep a positive attitude toward drug prevention awareness.
“It’s something to make everyone aware of the harmful effects that drugs and alcohol have on a child or a teenager or adult — just for the awareness of it,” Lubertazzo said. “We try to have a positive turn on it, too. We’ll do the theme days that kids this age love to do.”
Lubertazzo said she also visits every classroom for talks and lessons about drug prevention. For younger students, Lubertazzo said she focuses the lessons more toward healthy lifestyles and developing positive self-esteem.
“Continuously throughout the year, we’ll still work on positive self-esteem, peer pressure, getting along with others, feeling good about yourself, those types of things,” Lubertazzo said. “We’ll do lessons, not only for this week, but throughout the year, and then our fifth graders, they have D.A.R.E. for half the year so they get that.”
Fifth grader Emily Harte said she thought it was interesting that Niko is so obedient, because she has a dog at home that doesn’t listen much at all.
“I think the most interesting thing is that he (Officer Divito) really doesn’t have to say a command, he can just show him (Niko) the toy and he knows exactly what to do,” Emily said.
After having participated in Red Ribbon Week and listening to the police warn about the dangers of drug abuse, Emily said she wanted to do more to help other people stay away from drugs, as well as herself.
“I don’t think that you should take drugs because you could die from taking drugs and you should really try to stay healthy and not put things into your body that you shouldn’t,” Emily said.
