7TH-GRADERS WILL GET SANE EDUCATION : GOAL IS TO REINFORCE EARLIER ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE IN JUNIOR HIGH.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

In a effort to prevent delinquent behavior among local teens, the SANE program of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will be taught for the first time to seventh-graders beginning this fall.

The Substance Abuse Narcotics Education curriculum, long offered to fourth- through sixth-graders, will be extended to the Santa Clarita Valley's junior high schools, thanks to a three-year, $500,000 grant from the state of California, said Kevin Tonoian, a spokesman for the city of Santa Clarita.

``This is SANE's first extension into the junior high school level, in any of the communities for which (the Sheriff's Department) provides services,'' Tonoian said.

``Seventh-graders will receive a more in-depth curriculum, which will help them develop better resistance skills to peer pressure and build a higher self-esteem,'' Tonoian said.

Students at Placerita Junior High School in Newhall will be the first to receive the classroom instruction by sheriff's deputies.

The grant runs through 1998 and also provides funding for a kindergarten through third-grade program, aimed at youngsters at risk of delinquent behavior later in life. Some of the grant money also will fund classes in parenting skills.

The city will administer the grant on behalf of numerous community organizations - including the Santa Clarita Valley Boys & Girls Club, all of the local school districts, the sheriff's Santa Clarita Valley station and the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce - that worked with city officials to write the grant proposal, said Pam Matsuoka, coordinator of the city's youth outreach program.

One reason community leaders sought the grant was that Sheriff's Department statistics showed a sharp increase in the number of gang members known to be living in the Santa Clarita Valley between 1992 and 1995. That figure in the Sheriff's Department files jumped from 125 to 700, Matsuoka said.

Sgt. Ron Boudreaux, who administers the SANE program for schools in the Santa Clarita, Antelope and Conejo valleys, said that the foundation laid in the deputies' lessons for pre-adolescents should be strengthened as the students enter their teens - he likened the junior high program to a ``booster shot'' that reinforces the message they got as youngsters.

``You're teaching elementary school students to stay away from drugs and build their self-esteem, and then all of a sudden it stops. There's no real drug education program that follows them into the secondary schools,'' Boudreaux said.

``I don't know what happens during that summer from elementary to junior high,'' Boudreaux said, ``but you can just see the difference when you go from one campus to the next. The children act differently.''

The funding originates with the federal government, through the Department of Justice. In turn, the money is sent to the state, earmarked for delinquency prevention programs.

The governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning awarded the $500,000 grant to the city in November, based on the proposal that identified gang involvement and the easy availability of drugs and alcohol as the region's two main problems facing youth, Matsuoka said.

In the second year of the program, the SANE curriculum could be taught at Sierra Vista Junior High in Canyon Country. Castaic Middle School seventh-graders could get the program the following year, because the grant specified Val Verde and Castaic youths as at-risk of delinquent behavior.

``It's part of the overall philosophy of the city to take a pro-active approach,'' Matsuoka said. ``I think everybody is under the realization that there is no perfect community.''

Boudreaux said that young teens need repeated reminders about how to walk the straight and narrow as they try to forge an identity while navigating the challenging adolescent years - when friends are likely to pressure them into all sorts of destructive behavior.

The SANE lessons students learn in elementary school should be fresh in their minds when they are faced with tough situations as teen-agers, Boudreaux said.

``We shouldn't just end the program and say: `OK, you're on your own,' '' he said. ``It's kind of like a foreign language. If you learn the language and don't use it, you become rusty. I don't think what we've taught them is ever lost. It's always there to be drawn on.''