The program for seventh graders at River Trail Middle School was called Federal Law Enforcement Appreciation Day and was designed to introduce kids to various agencies and how they operate. The students gave the program a snazzier name: Spy Day.
The idea grew out of last spring’s career day, when some law enforcement agencies weren’t available to attend. Graduation coach Sarah Roberson organized this separate event to focus just on those fields, and with the support of the Parent Teacher Organization, to highlight drug awareness at the same time.
“Our thought was to bring in these law enforcement officers who have really cool jobs, and to say, ‘If you want to have a cool job like this, there’s no place in your life for drugs,’ ” said Roberson. “We reached out to police from Fulton County schools and other agencies, and asked them to talk about how being drug-free has benefited them and what they’ve seen in their jobs that our students could benefit from.”
The program featured representatives from the Georgia State Patrol, Johns Creek motorcycle and K-9 units, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms. Fire and SWAT trucks, as well as police cars, were also on hand. Each group manned a station where students rotated through to learn about the officers and their work.
One of the biggest attractions was the arrival of a State Patrol helicopter that kids could peek into, but sixth grader Lucas Hernandez was taken with the K-9 unit.
“The coolest thing I saw was the dog that could sniff gun powder,” said the 11-year-old. “Its job was to find bullets or explosives. I thought it was cool an animal could do a job like that – that a human couldn’t.”
Hernandez also got to sit inside a police car and was fingerprinted as part of the voluntary Operation Safe Kids program.
“That was cool, too; now I know what my fingerprint looks like,” he said.
Dominick Delmastro, president of the Atlanta chapter of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and a special agent with the Postal Inspector General in Atlanta, coordinated the agencies in attendance.
“We do at least two events like this a year,” he said. “And it’s always done at a school. We try to get as many active duty federal law enforcement agencies as we can. There’s no specific agenda; it’s just something to put out positive community relations. We try to show the human factor of law enforcement by being ourselves, and the kids love it.”
At the end of the day, the school’s eighth graders joined their younger peers to watch the helicopter take off.
“It was so much fun, and the teachers thought it was a great experience for the kids,” said Roberson. “We’re expecting to do it again next year.”
While the day may have inspired some kids to consider careers in law enforcement, Hernandez wasn’t entirely won over.
“Well, I’d definitely want to learn more about it, but I’m not sure I’d want to pursue it as a career,” he admitted. “But it does seem like a cool job to have.”
Information about River Trail Middle is online at fultonschools.org/rivertrailms.
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Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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