Article
Accessibility of D.A.R.E Resources
Teaching students decision making for safe and healthy living.
D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is an educational program that seeks to prevent the use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. Classrooms all across American participate in this program which is taught by certified D.A.R.E. law enforcement personel. D.A.R.E. follows a curriculum; Susan Juarez, a TVI, shared the following information about how to access the D.A.R.E. materials.
I just had a classroom teacher let me know that their 5th-grade class would be starting weekly D.A.R.E. Programs lessons and that the students were all receiving a workbook with activities and worksheets to complete. I scrambled to find out what accessibility options were available and wanted to pass along what I found in case anyone else can use the info!
D.A.R.E. Workbooks
The workbooks are available both in digital format and Braille format but have to be ordered. The school resource officer will likely not be familiar with these options (such as in our case). Access the digital workbook and sign up to create an “instructor” account. Once signed up, you can create an active classroom session and purchase student “seats” for $1.59 each (easy online purchase). As the instructor, you area able to select which workbook the students will have access to. You will also be given an access code for students to use when signing up.
The student then visits the daremobile website student portal and creates a “student” account and use the access code that was generated in the instructor account.
Once logged in, the students will have access to all of the pages of the workbook, organized in a list of links. The worksheets seem to work well with VoiceOver on an iPhone but haven’t tested them with any other screenreaders yet. There are fillable text edit boxes embedded in the worksheets and students can save their work as they go so that the instructor can monitor their work.
As a side note, the digital book system is managed by a separate company from the rest of the DARE program. Kathie Salas and her husband manage the digital book portal and was excited that the book seems to be accessible to screenreader users. She also welcomed and hoped for any feedback that we can provide to make it even more accessible! The digital book, called “Keepin’ It Real: Elementary Curriculum for 5th/6th grade”, is also available in Spanish and French.
I will provide feedback that the DARE Mobile App is NOT accessible to screenreaders but the mobile platform (accessed through mobile browser) does seem to be accessible. I’d love for others to test it out to see if there are any adjustments they could make to enhance the accessibility. FYI, the instructor account is free and allows full access to the workbook… the $1.59 charge is only for additional books to be assigned to students.
Braille copies of the workbooks can be ordered (no cost) using this instructor materials form.
You will need the name of the D.A.R.E. police officer assigned to the school in order to complete the form.
Note: The owner of DARE Mobile was SUPER excited to help in any way possible. She really hoped for feedback on accessibility of the digital workbooks. If you get a chance to try out the site and provide feedback to her, she would welcome it! She was hoping that the Dare Mobile App would be accessible but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be. VoiceOver wasn’t able to read any buttons on the opening page of the app. It was a lot more image based than the mobile platform version of the workbook.
I have noticed that some of the navigation buttons on the website and most images could be labeled better but is definitely able to be navigated as is. Just tested it with a fifth grade student using the dare mobile site thru Safari and navigating primarily with a refreshable braille display. Student is able to enter answers in text field boxes and submit work to teacher within the digital work
By Diane Brauner
