By Fox23.com News Staff
TULSA, Okla. — The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) and Tulsa Tech teamed up on Thursday to give high school students insight into potential career paths within law enforcement.
More than 200 students from East Central, Nathan Hale, Kipp, Crossover Prep and Tulsa Virtual Academy went to Tulsa Tech to learn about various career options for the “Dream Out Loud” event being hosted in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day next week.
“This is our sixth year in partnership with Tulsa Tech as well as the Martin Luther King Society,” explained Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado. “We’re taking part in the events leading up to Martin Luther King Day and today’s about career guidance for students. We want to expose them to the many different careers that are out there and this is geared towards kids that are deciding whether or not to go to college or go to work right after.”
Sheriff Regalado said the program not only helps students, but also supports local law enforcement agencies.
“From a criminal justice standpoint, we’ve really seen the dividends of this program. We have hired a lot of kids that went through this program to the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and so it’s a benefit to them. It’s benefit to us. It’s a benefit to all the careers that are represented here today and so we love to take part in that. We’re vested in caring for these kids, their futures and so it’s been a wonderful partnership.”
During the program, the sheriff’s office discussed with students the benefits of Tulsa Tech’s Criminal Justice program.
“In our partnership in the Criminal Justice program at Tulsa Tech, they actually run a detention officer academy, so when these kids graduate from here they immediately have a job with us if they’d like or they can go to any jail in the state of Oklahoma and they’re trained detention officers…Many of them come over and they’ll work a few years and then jump over into police departments, they jump to certified deputy roles. It’s an outstanding opportunity for them and it also helps us. It’s tough to find quality detention officers, so when we get them young and trained, I mean, you cannot do better than that.”
The sheriff’s office said they also discussed other career paths in law enforcement, including available roles for civilians.
