The Fort Worth Police Department is looking to expand a unique student program.
Their criminal justice program for at-risk inner-city high schoolers graduated its inaugural class of about 30 students a few months ago, and many of them have been placed in full-time jobs for the City of Fort Worth and the police department.
The program is breaking barriers in a key part of the community, all while helping to fill crucial positions in understaffed areas of the department and creating a pipeline of homegrown talent.
"It just gives you different avenues on how you can bring new people in,” said Officer Tracy Carter. “We're only the ones in the United States that are doing this. But I think people are going to copy this – it's a great tool.”
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Carter, a homegrown officer himself, worked with Fort Worth ISD to help launch the program last year.
“I had a good friend who was a school board president at the time, Toby Jackson – and I shared my idea about getting young people in this space and just seeing if we could get them interested in working for the city or just getting some structure in their life.”
It started with a pilot program in the neighborhood Carter grew up in, focusing on juniors and seniors at Eastern Hills and South Hills high schools.
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"Just to see them grow within that year, it's amazing,” he said. “This is something we want to continue to see grow."
The students go to a twice-weekly class in person at the Fort Worth Police Academy at the department’s headquarters.
Based on a peace officer course, the class gives the students hands-on exposure, activities, and behind-the-scenes experiences of law enforcement and public service.
"We wanted them to have those interactions with us, to let them know that, ‘Hey, we're just like you, we're people. We have the same problems, whether it's bills, family, kids,” said Officer Daniel McCreery, the instructor for the criminal justice program.
McCreery, a former SWAT officer turned teacher, stepped into a role he never thought he would take on before.
“It was definitely a challenge coming up with the curriculum and what we were going to teach them. The goal was to expose them to what a recruit would go through,” he said.
He based the program on three tenets: structure, discipline and accountability.
“I was very concerned with how the kids were going to react to it, if they were just going to walk out, like you see on the TV shows,” McCreery joked. “But they actually gravitated toward the discipline. And we found that the structure and discipline is what they were really missing in their lives.”
McCreery said he has embraced the role as a mentor with the goal of breaking barriers between police and the students.
"Some of these kids came from broken homes. I have kids that don't have washer and dryers at the house or just basic necessities they need just to care for themselves,” he said. "What I've learned from that is you still see they might not have everything, but they're just as talented. They have the motivation and the desire to be successful.”
At the end of this first graduating class, Fort Worth PD hosts a job fair, helping students with their resumes and conducting mock interviews. That led to real interviews, and McCreery said six of his students put their new skills to the test.
“The supervisor of communications said they did better on their interviews than any adult they've seen come through. And all six were given a job offer. So that was pretty amazing to see,” he said.
Several grads have earned life-changing jobs with the City of Fort Worth including 18-year-old Rosemary Guerra.
She recalls the challenges of the program and the rides that McCreery and other officers would give to students just to help them get to the class all the way to the academy on Felix Street.
“I was honestly shocked about that because they would pick us up early in the morning just so that we could get there on time. They wanted us to be there,” she said. “They really brought me back down to earth and realized these officers, they're just like me. They have lives.”
Guerra graduated as Valedictorian of the inaugural class and just launched a career with the 911 call center, which often struggles with staffing.
The department says at any time given time, they are down as many as 30 operators, so Guerra’s position is crucial.
Guerra says she makes enough money to help her mom with bills and as an employee, the city will cover college tuition for her when she starts a criminal justice or law degree.
"That was honestly very eye-opening for me as well, because it's like you don't always have to go in one direction. They say that it's the only successful way, pursuing a degree. Yes, that's great. But you can also pursue a career that will give you that experience, that will teach you things,” she said.
More than the job, McCreery said the program is also improving the perception of police.
“We have all the kids do a survey at the beginning, how they feel about the police – and it's negative,” said McCreery. “Then at the end of the year, we do that same survey, and it's all positive. So just them being able to be around us and seeing that, y'all are just like us.”
The hope is for this program to create a homegrown response to police shortages and more opportunities for youth in an uncertain world.
"Don't write anybody off. Don't write these kids off just because they come from maybe not so well-to-do homes,” said McCreery. “They still want and have that drive to be successful."
