While I was standing at the radio room door waiting to get the keys to my shop (police car) and my radio, my sergeant asked me to come to his office when I was finished getting my gear. Other officers were standing around and overheard the request. It felt like I had just been called into the principal's office to answer for a transgression. I was not worried, if I had done something really wrong, Internal Affairs would have come calling, not my sergeant. Once I got to his office, my sergeant kind of stuttered and stammered for a minute, searching for the correct way to say what he wanted to say. This actually made me think for a minute that I was in trouble. Once he finally found the words that he wanted to use, it was actually good news and bad news.
First, the good news. Since I am a trainer and an evaluator, part of my job is documenting what happens during the shift. I am required to train or evaluate the probationary officer's performance in 16 different categories. I must cover all of the categories at least 3 times in a 5 day week. I usually cover all 16 categories every training or evaluation day. This documentation takes some time as you can imagine. We are allowed and encouraged to start and complete if possible, the documentation during the shift. I write my documentation while the probationary officer is writing whatever reports he/she has to write. As an incentive/reward for training, the department gives me an hour of paid overtime or comp time (time in the books that I can take off later) for each training or evaluation day. When I went through the training program, trainers got the hour of overtime along with a take home patrol car. So, the department has taken away some of the incentive to train. Now for the good news, my sergeant told me that we can now put in for an hour of paid overtime and an hour of comp time for each training or evaluation day. The only caveat is there must be enough documentation to justify the extra hour. This is great news for me, I am always in need in comp time since I tend to take some time off.
This led into the bad news. My sergeant then told me that starting next Tuesday, I will be evaluating a probationary officer in week two of phase 6. Training is broken down into 6 phases. Three phases of training, a different trainer for each phase, which are 3 weeks each for a total of 9 weeks. This is followed by phase 4, which is 2 weeks of evaluation, a week each with two different evaluators. If the probationary officer passes, he is finished with the training program. If the probationary officer fails evaluation, he goes to phase 5 which is 3 more weeks of training in only the categories in which he failed. Then we come to 6th phase. Final Evaluation. The probationary officer is evaluated in only the categories that he failed in phase 4. It is 3 weeks in duration. If a probationary officer passes week 1 and week 2, he has passed and is done with the training program. If he fails week one or week 2, he gets to go to week 3, for a final do-or-die week of evaluation.
The probationary officer that I am getting next Tuesday, just finished failing week 1 of phase 6 of evaluation. That means that he must pass with me, or he has failed the program and will be terminated. So, needless to say, he will be stressing beyond belief. I will be evaluating him in officer safety, the only category that he failed in phase 4. It is imperative that I do excellent documentation since there is a good chance that he will fail and be recommended for termination. When someone fails the training program, that have the option of going before a termination board and all of the documentation is reviewed. At this point, if the documentation is poor and does not adequately justify the failing scores, the scores can be changed and the probationary can be passed. Even if the probationary has no business being an officer. Therefore, good documentation is vital if the probationary might fail.
I have done one other 6th phase evaluation and it went very well. The probationary had learned from his mistakes in phase 4 and learned from the additional 3 weeks of training in phase 5. I have been led to believe that that is not the case with this probationary. I will do my best to go into the evaluation without any preconceived notions about the probationary officer, but it will be difficult. The evaluation process is supposed to be without bias. But, it is also the sergeant's job to prepare me for what I may have to do. Regardless, the probationary will get a fair chance from me. If he passes, he will have earned it, and likewise if he fails. It should be interesting.
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