Friday students from the Regional Day School Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which is run through Crowley ISD, took a field trip to the Burleson Police Department.
"I want to learn more about how cops, you know, work with deaf people," 15-year-old Ava Tinsley said through an American Sign Language interpreter.
Students got to climb on a police motorcycle, go through a SWAT vehicle, learn about drones, and see a drug-sniffing dog in action.
"They need to experience life, but experience it in a way that they also have communication," said Shannon Johnson, Regional Day School Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program Coordinator. "Being here today with our interpreters, our teachers, they have access through sign language to experience the same situations that many kids get to do."
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They also could see themselves behind one of the badges. Corporal Erica Trevino of the Dalhart Police Department is the first deaf female police officer in Texas and only the second in the nation.
"I want them to think, if she can do it I can too," Trevino said. "I'm not here to tell them, oh be a police officer. I'm here to show them that it's possible to forge your own path, to be anything you want to be."
"Don't think deaf people are inferior," Tinsley said. "They're the same. We're on the same level. We're human. There's nothing different. All deaf people can't do is hear. That's it!"
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The field trip ended with some surprised looks when Santa entered the room.
"Tell me one thing that you would like for Christmas," Santa asked, using sign language as he spoke.
The Frank Walters Foundation for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children helped make the field trip possible.
