Butte County Grand Jury • 2022-2023 • Agency Response

Butte College Superior Court of California County of Butte*

Published: August 10, 2022 3 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 3 findings

F1
The BCLEA is a comprehensive and well-run program that follows the state mandated POST curriculum. BCLEA's classroom hours exceeds POST's minimum hourly requirement. It provides a vital function to law enforcement agencies and to graduates who go on to a career in law enforcement. Response: Agree
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
The Butte-Glenn Community College District Board of Trustees to institute a program whereby recently graduated and currently employed officers can provide anonymous feedback for changes/improvements to the program by June 30, 2023. Response: The recommendation has already been implemented in part. Academy staff receives feedback and comments from the academy advisory board, which is comprised of executive-level law enforcement officers from Butte County and surrounding counties to solicit and implement improvements to the District's programs. In 2017-2018, Academy staff received robust feedback for changes and improvements to the program from the academy advisory board regarding the topics identified in the BCGJ report, among others. After various meetings and discussions regarding the concerns, the District began to implement changes in response to the feedback provided and members of the academy advisory board have expressed satisfaction with the improvements and changes already implemented. These changes were made over time since 2017-18, including the period the BCGJ report was prepared. Additionally, each student is required to provide feedback on each of the 41 learning domains presented in the course. The student feedback is submitted anonymously and reviewed by academy staff and the instructor of record. Both positive and negative comments are discussed with the instructor on how best to improve future instruction. Butte College will continue to use the feedback for changes/improvements received from the academy advisory board and from students to change and improve the program. As noted above, this recommendation has been implemented in part. The feedback of graduated and currently employed officers is regularly received; however, it is not anonymous. Only student feedback is currently anonymous. After reflecting on the current process for feedback by graduates and employed officers, the District has respectfully determined that anonymous feedback is not necessitated as robust and timely feedback is provided through the advisory board of the program. The District will continue to monitor this situation and may determine in the future, based on consultation with the advisory board and others in the law enforcement community, that an anonymous feedback system should be implemented. Therefore, a portion of this recommendation will not currently be implemented. 3536 Butte Campus Drive • Oroville • CA 95965 • 530.895.2511 BUTTE COLLEGE
F2
The Butte County Grand Jury (BCGJ) identified areas in which the BCLEA program needs more instruction and preparation: Additional and more realistic scenario training • Additional emphasis on communication skills and how to defuse potentially volatile situations • Additional training on search and seizure and the legal limits of officers . How to effectively deal with the unsheltered population and individuals with mental health . issues Training on Community Policing Techniques • Response: Partially Agree: The District provided instruction and preparation in the identified areas beyond legal requirements prior to receiving the BCGJ report. Below is a summary of instructional requirements and what is provided by the District: Minimum number of hours required for each academy presentation is 664 hours. Butte College exceeds the minimum, providing 925 hours. A minimum of 18 hours of scenario training is required by POST. Butte College exceeds the minimum, providing 30 hours of training. POST learning domain "Principled Policing in the Community" addresses community ENN CA BUTTE COLLEGE techniques. Further, the "Victimology/Crisis Intervention and Use of Force/De- Escalation" learning domains provide an additional 32 hours of training. The "People with Disabilities" learning domain provides 16 hours of specific training to 0 address appropriate interactions with persons with mental health issues. Students participate in activities at assigned shelters and rehabilitation programs such as the Torres Shelter, Salvation Army, Jesus Center, etc.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The Butte-Glenn Community College District Board of Trustees to conduct an internal review of the allotted time assigned to each Learning Domain to determine if more time and instruction can be redirected to the topics identified in F2 by June 30, 2023. Response: The recommendation has already been implemented in previous programmatic reviews. As noted above, instruction time and instruction for the topics identified in F2 have already been reviewed and addressed by the District. The number of instructional minutes has been increased in some instances and, as a result of critical feedback from the academy advisory board, other changes to instruction have been successfully implemented. Additionally, POST conducts a Basic Course Certification Review every three years to confirm the District's compliance with applicable California Code of Regulations as administered by POST. The Board of Trustees will receive, review, and implement updates and changes stemming from POST reviews and from feedback received from the academy advisory board and students. Although the District does not perceive a need to review or adjust the allotted time for Learning Domains at this time, it will continue to keep this issue in the forefront and in the future, based on feedback about the effectiveness of the program, the District may determine to adjust the time allotted to a set of Learning Domains in the future. Respectfully submitted, irginia Virginia L. Guleff Butte College Superintendent/President Jule Dass Julie Boss Butte College Board of Trustees President 3536 Butte Campus Drive • Oroville • CA 95965 • 530.895.2511
F3
The Scenario Village is a Positive addition to BCLEA that enables instructors to create real life scenarios to better prepare students for experiences in the field. Response: Agree Responses to Recommendations:
No recommendations for this finding

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.