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Ed Bedford, a member of a School Governance Committee, requested that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools budget request be fully funded. In addition he requested an increase of at least $750,000 for the at- risk and special needs students, as well as funds for some of the recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Task Force. Linda Newmark, a parent with three children in the school system, requested that the budget be fully funded. She mentioned that the high school is currently housing 2400 students and was originally built for only 1600. She believes that this is a very bad time to hold the line on school spending. The overcrowding will continue in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro system unless the community and elected officials are willing to aggressively meet those needs now. Steve Wallace mentioned that he was working with the D.A.R.E. program and that he is a member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro D.A.R.E. review committee. He distributed a fact sheet which indicated that this program is not accomplishing its goal of reducing drug use among the youth and that drug use is on the increase. He stated that the Interdisciplinary Curriculum "Alcohol and Other Drugs" (A.O.D.) for Grades K-5 is the program endorsed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The A.O.D. program is not being used because the D.A.R.E. program is already in place. The Town of Chapel Hill has begun an evaluation of all alternatives. This report is expected to be completed in the fall of this year. The cost per child for the D.A.R.E. program, when the salary of both the officer and teacher is included, is $150.00 per child, per year. He asked that the Board of Commissioners consider requesting that the schools implement the A.O.D. Program and discontinue the D.A.R.E. program. Commissioner Carey asked if the A.O.D. program has been implemented by other school systems across the State. He requested that the school officials gather information about statewide use of the A.O.D. program and report on the results of both the D.A.R.E. and the A.O.D. program's success rate in terms of lowering drug use among youth. Annette Henry spoke in support of the Radio Reading Program. This program supports many listeners who are isolated and live alone. Over 59 hours of local programming are produced each week for the 75 Orange County recipients. This service is also available in each of the hospital rooms at UNC Memorial Hospitals. Judge Mario Peronnie spoke in support of this Radio Reading Program. Both he and his wife use this service. Without this service they would both be deprived of much information which appears in newspapers and other print sources. They would be unable to keep up with local politics, town and county issues and other information necessary to stay up-to-date with the community. Barbara Delon, a parent and Chapel Hill resident, spoke in support of the entire Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools budget request.