FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. COC-06-017
September 12, 2005
Sheriff's North Academy Returns to Campus
More than 120 regular and reserve Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies will be trained over the next year in a new Sheriff’s training facility at College of the Canyons in Valencia. Known as the Sheriff’s North Academy, training will take place weekdays for the regular officers and Wednesday nights and Sundays for the reserves. A new classroom building specifically for use by the Sheriffs has been placed on campus near the softball fields to accommodate this training.
Sheriff Baca will tour the new North Academy facility and College campus beginning at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, September 13.
Classroom training and practical exercises will be in the curriculum and it will not be uncommon for the community to see platoons of Sheriff trainees hoofing the streets of Santa Clarita as part of their physical training regimen.
The first class of recruits began training at College of the Canyons on September 6, having spent the first two weeks of their academy training at a Whittier facility.
Nearly 50 students are in the first academy class and a second class, including asmany as 75 students, is expected to begin in January 2006. The size of the academy classes reflects a recent upturn in hiring, with many new recruits coming from the Santa Clarita, San Fernando, Simi and Antelope Valleys as well as parts of Ventura County including Thousand Oaks and Camarillo.
According to Dr. Barry Gribbons, Vice President of Institutional Development at the college, “We are delighted to partner with the Sheriff’s Department in reopening the North Academy on our campus and look forward to a strong partnership with the Sheriff’s Department for the foreseeable future.”
College of the Canyons parking lots will be used on occasion, as they have in the past, as practical training grounds for high-risk stops, so it won’t be uncommon for community members to see patrol cars, flashing lights and what will look like real-life law enforcement activities occurring on college property. These activities are carefully controlled and monitored for safety and are some of the most important training the deputies undertake.
Deputies who complete the training will, in addition to the practical law enforcement skills and procedures necessary for their jobs, receive 10 units of degree-applicable, transferable credit which will allow them to advance educationally through their careers.
College of the Canyons has had a long history of training partnerships, providing in-service training for fire departments, the LAPD and the Sheriffs.
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