“A Path To Success”

A Kevlar vest can catch a bullet and or protect you from a knife thrust. But the best weapon a police officer has is his brain, and knowing how to listen and work with people.

That was one of the first lessons Officer Jason Jackson taught a group of high school students Thursday afternoon as he helped kick off the inaugural session of the Public Safety Academy. The new program aims to get freshmen like Kristen Avery, Shawn Fletcher, and Joshua Rosario (pictured below) focused on careers as cops, firemen, and EMTs.

Jackson was one of a dozen police officers and firefighters who gathered in the library of Hillhouse High School Thursday afternoon for the kick-off.

The program will follow students through four years of high school, starting with a group of 26 Hillhouse students this year. It couples inspiration and close mentoring with four years’ worth of progressively more hands-on training. It includes course work at Gateway Community College and technical help so students graduate with certifications, college credits, and have a leg up on civil service exams right out of high school.

“We know it’s a path to success,” said firefighter Lt. Gary Tinney of the New Haven Firebirds, who helped launch the program with Assistant Police Chief Petisia Adger.

Tinney said that kids in Meriden and the suburbs get a chance to learn public safety career skills through partnerships with, for example, volunteer fire companies. New Haven doesn’t have that.

Which is why, for example, 14-year veteran firefighter Erica Bogan was on hand. Of the 26 kids in the program’s first class, 10 are female. That’s important to Bogan, who graduated from Hillhouse in 1987 not knowing what to do in life.

After marrying and raising three kids, she went back to work as a fire dispatcher, saw the firefighting profession firsthand, and decided to try it herself. She said she would have done it right out of high school, had she only known more about it.

Listening to Bogan, freshman Avery said she was inspired. ​“I wanted to be [only] an EMT,” when she signed up for the program. Now she wants to be a firefighter, she said.

“You can do anything you want,” Bogan said. ​“You’re only limited by …” She pointed to Avery’s head.

The Public Safety Academy is an interest area or ​“advisory” structured under Hillhouse’s ​“freshman academy,” one of the four smaller schools-within-schools that are reshaping education at the high school.

The 26 students who signed up for the Public Safety Academy take all the required courses throughout their four years, with electives in the public safety area. In their junior and senior years, students will be able to take courses at Gateway Community College.

Students must maintain a C average and be in good standing in the school from a behavior perspective, said Drew Marconi, a Yale Presidential Public Service Fellow who is helping to organize the four-year curriculum. The program will have zero tolerance for failures in those areas, he said.

Marconi is recruiting 15 Yale colleagues to tutor the freshmen throughout their four years. ​“If you don’t get your reading skills up, you can’t pass the certifications,” he said.

But the first year of the pilot program is focused on exposure and inspiration.

Which was why Nia, Bitang, and Xander, three of the NHPD’s seven-dog canine corps were also on hand to wow the kids.

After Officer Lars Vallin’s Xander rushed to him at the command ​“fuss,” Vallin explained that the dog is Dutch and trained in German. It’s easier for the human to learn a little German than for Xander to begin to try to understand commands in English, he said.

One freshman asked how much money a police officer makes. The answer: Not enough, and that’s not why we do the job.

“We’ll have plenty of time to discuss all that later,” said Adger.

She said the program will run entirely on volunteer time from about 50 police officers and firefighters. A pilot year budget of about $50,000 pays for for uniforms, books, training manuals, field trips, and the salaries of instructors in specialized public safety fields. A full four-year budget is being worked out.

Lt. Tinney said there’s been a lot of interest from churches and other groups to be involved and many kids from other schools have expressed an interest. For now, it’s to stay at Hillhouse, with 26 new freshman added each year.

Tinney said his goal is to eventually open a public safety-themed high school on the model of the MLK Firefighter Academy in Cleveland, Ohio.

There’s a 50 percent high school drop-out rate in that city, but 90 percent of the kids enrolled in MLK graduate, many eventually into jobs in fire, police, and other services like the FBI.

Those interested in contributing in-kind services or funds can contact either Assistant Chief Adger at 946‑6265 or Lt. Tinney at 868‑1578.