The Frederick County Sheriffs Office D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program began in the fall of 1988, in seven elementary schools in Frederick County, with one Deputy teaching a 17-week Curriculum in the fifth grade classrooms. These lessons, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, ranged in topics from Ways of Saying No, Peer Pressure, Self-Esteem, Media Influence on Youth, Assertiveness, Skits, as well as Role Models being brought in from the high schools, to answer concern the students might have going into the middle schools.