San Jose Police Academy Question

[BayAreaKyle]

Does anyone know anything about this academy? I believe it's called either Evergreen or South Bay Regional Public Safety Training but am looking for someone who can tell me for sure. Do they have the yelling, in your face attitude of ACSO and CoCo or more of a student success and learning emphasis of Napa? Thanks for any resources you could direct me to or insight into the academy.

Kyle

[ateamer]

They are very inconsistent. You might be doing pushups, might get talked to, or might have to write a memo when you mess something up. The class might have a tac officer or might not. Instructors are not consistent. One will insist that a particular thing be done they way he teaches, and then a month later, another instructor will ding you for doing it that way. They allow people who have been terminated midway through the academy by their agency for integrity issues to go through the next class as a nonaffiliate, when the academy "leadership" knows what happened. They don't drop unsat people because more attendance = more $$$.

San Jose PD and Santa Clara SO have both started their own academies. Fewer departments are clicked up with South Bay, and are switching to Santa Clara SO.

[BayAreaKyle]

Oh, OK. Do you know anything about the SJPD Academy?

Thanks for the info on those two particular academies though.

Kyle

[ateamer]

San Jose PD runs their academy for their department only. You can't put yourself through. As far as I know, Santa Clara SO academy does not accept non-affiliates. There are a few agencies sending recruits there.

[BayAreaKyle]

I'm in the application process with SJPD right now. Assuming I'm hired by them I'd like to know what the academy is like.

Kyle

[ateamer]

I don't know what their academy is like, but I can tell you that SJPD is a first-class department and has lots of outstanding people. Don't worry about the academy - whether it is a cakewalk or hell on Earth, it is just a few months out of your career, and you will never have to repeat it. Just do everything the instructors say, to the letter, and do your very best every time, and you will be fine.

[usaaman025]

SJPD acad is not that bad. It's nothing like ACSO. ACSO is terrible and their philosophy is seriously flawed. Perhaps that is why Santa Clara PD is looking into sending their recruits to SJ acad rather than ACSO. Fremont has also had more luck with SJPD.

And BTW...SJ does NOT take non-affiliates. Where are you in the process Kyle? If you need more info, email me.

[Saname81]

How many academy schools are there in California, not sure how it works in the west but down here in Miami each county runs there own academy school some are more updated than others and some schools are even shorter than others. The typical academy class runs any where from 5 to 6 months for Police Officers and 6 to 12 months for Sheriff Deputy's and Highway Patrol.

[ask80]

42 academies in CA I believe, according to the CA POST website
http://www.post.ca.gov/training/academies.asp

yep each academy are ran differently. there's only a minimum number of hours required for training ( I think like 600 hours). but most agencies have 800-1100 hours of total training. Example. LASD academy is only 18 weeks, but LAPD is like 24 week (i believe)....

[sinned]

SJPD acad is not that bad. It's nothing like ACSO. ACSO is terrible and their philosophy is seriously flawed. Perhaps that is why Santa Clara PD is looking into sending their recruits to SJ acad rather than ACSO. Fremont has also had more luck with SJPD.

Just curious how you figure. ACSO is one of the top 3 academies in the entire country short of the private groups like Blackwater. I think LASO has them beat but not by much. COCO is coming up quick adopting the ACSO outline almost verbatim.

There are very agencies in the bay area that do not use ACSO or wish they could, classes fill months in advance and they are already over capacity.

If I didn't know better I would guess you failed out and have a grudge or something.

[R1pilot]

San Jose is one of the better agencies in the area. They are a bit arrogant. They run a pretty high stress academy. I've got nothing but good things to say about ACSO. I worked a Loss Prevention gig up in Norcal prior to moving south. Frequently interfaced with ACSO deputies. Very squared away, cool people. If you are lucky enough to be selected by SJPD, keep your head down and persevere. Just try not to pay attention to how much you are paying into your retirement...

[7PointStar]

San Jose PD runs their own academy now, additional information is available from their site.

http://www.sjpd.org/joinsjpdblue/PoliceAcademy.html

But they do not train non-affiliates.

[barkalot]

I recently spent three weeks at the South Bay Regional Public Safety Training Consortium (SBRPSTC) and we were normally around the recruits during their classroom and some scenario training. Not once did I ever hear any yelling whatsoever.

I was not overly impressed with the whole thing, though.

The facility is fairly nice, but most of the instructors we had (for a POST re-qualification course) didn't seem to take the whole thing very seriously. I'm not trying to get into any kind of ******ing match here, but frankly most of the instructors were San Jose PD officers from sergeants on down.

The main beef I had was most of the instructors just glanced over the curriculum (Learning Domains) We had some people who had been out of LE for years and really needed to get all the information possible and have their questions answered.

Another beef was that the instructors all seemed to want to get out of class as soon as possible, so they gave us extremely long breaks and lunches and usually cut us loose well before the class was supposed to end. This was normally in direct opposition to the academy staff who insisted we stay the entire amount of time due to POST requirements. So, after being harped on about the importance of ethics, the instructors ignored their bosses and did what they wanted.

I don't think the academy has their own instructors, which makes sense since you want actively working officers teaching recruits. So the inconsistency label doesn't really surprise me much.

They academy is using instructors from various departments and taking whoever they can get. Most of the instructors are just doing it for the extra money and some of ours even mentioned they had never actually taught the section they were going to teach for the day.

When all was said and done, we had a POST-certified certificate just like everyone else in the state, so I just did what I was told to do and went home.

I also tried to just focus on the better instructors who showed an active interest in us, some of which were also from San Jose PD.