wsweeks2 said:
Legacy - the academy down here is only 10 weeks? Wow!
In MD, I spent the better part of the full 6 months as an intern with the class I was paired up with. After the 6 months, they have 8 weeks of field training as well.
I'd be curious to see what the differences are that account for the length of time.
The state mandate class is ten weeks. It's a basic certification class that doesn't include things like speed detection certification and a lot of topics that other states include in their basic academies. The state operates 10 regional academies that serve all of the departments in their specified region. Some departments operate their own academies and include a lot of extras that their particular departments want officers to have coming out of the academy. Also, a lot of departments have an "advanced academy" that they run academy grads through upon completing the basic academy.
The GSP has an 18 week academy. They get the 10 week basic school plus speed detection, three weeks of specialized crash investigation and a few other things that stretch it out that long.
The GBI runs a 16 week school that includes the basic 10 weeks plus specialized investigative courses.
An officer can go through a basic academy class and then attend all of the other stuff the GSP and GBI do; so, there is nothing really special about their academies other than the length as all of the training is available to every officer in the state.
The rumor is that all of the basic academies will be moved to the training center in Forsyth and that the regional academies will then focus more on advanced training. This plan has some good points and bad points. It should help standardize the basic training, which will be a good thing as the regional academies invariably end up doing things slightly different. Some run boot camps style, some are very relaxed, and some fall in the middle. I would expect that at GPSTC it'll be more boot camp style.
