Miami-Dade SRT School

[em510]

Does anyone have information on physical fitness requirements for the Miami-Dade SRT school? SRT puts on a basic SWAT school in Ohio each year, and the course listing states that on the first day, a "demanding physical fitness assesment" will be administered - any student not passing will not be allowed to continue in the class. However, the actual requirements of the test seem to be some kind of secret. It seems a little silly to keep the prerequisites for a civilian police course secret, especially if a student is removed if not prepared. Is there anyone out there who knows what the PRT requirements are for this school? Thanks!

[Niteshift]

I'm not sure if the idea of not telling is silly........I can actually see some logic to it. First, they put on a pretty high speed course. Second, I can see where they would want you to expect the unexpected; sort of a "normal" thing for SWAT.

In any case, try calling Phil Sanfilippo at 305-715-5028. He is one of Miami-Dades Training coordinators.

[em510]

Thanks for the info!
Maybe "silly" was the wrong word. While I can see your point about extra stress/dealing with the undepected in not allowing potential students to know the requirements, I think that it would make sense to at least let departments or teams planning on sending students to the course know what will be expected of them; then they can adopt simmilar performance standards and avoid expending limited resources on students who may have passed the team/department's requirements, but are not prepared for training. A lot of small departments (mine included) have a very limited budget for training. Sending two or three officers out of town for two days, paying them overtime, travel costs, tuition, meals, ammo, and paying other officers overtime to fill their shifts is a huge commitment for a department to make. To have the officers returned, untrained, because the students (who met their own department's PRT and other standards) were a pull-up short, or 30 seconds over on a run seems a little wasteful.
Again, thank you for helping me out. Stay safe.

[em510]

OK, I can almost spell "unexpected"!

I really depend on my spellchecker!

[NLETA]

em510: "...the course listing states that on the first day, a 'demanding physical fitness assesment' will be administered - any student not passing will not be allowed to continue in the class. However, the actual requirements of the test seem to be some kind of secret."

I agree that this seems a little counter productive.

This is a tactical training course, not a PT test. It is reasonable to require studnets to pass a PT test to determine if they are fit enough to meet the physical demands of the course. However, it is only reasonable to release exactly what that test standard is so that departments can make sure to have attendees train up for it.

Otherwise, some students may be sent home and the course goes forward with empty training slots. This is a missed opportunity both for the students and instructors.

The goal in presenting a course is to train X number of students. It would seem better to do everything that you can to insure that only qualified students are sent to attend.

I see Niteshifts point, but this is not a training excercise for a department's team. It's a scheduled training course.

[John from Maryland]

em510, can you provide any more information on this course? I have heard of MDPD conducting SRT training in Ohio, but it wasn't in the Metropolitan Police Institute catalogue. Thanks and be safe.