In Part 2, Kathy provides a workout plan for use if an officer had only 15 minutes each day for exercise,
Female Fitness For Duty: Should We Train Differently? (Part2)
There are both obvious and discreet differences between men and women in many facets of the human body and mind, whether referring to everyday people, police officers, or hardened criminals. Not only do women in law enforcement have to work alongside and get along with their male colleagues, but also with respect to physiological differences female officers must pursue and fight with oftentimes faster and stronger male criminals.
Why Do We Do Sports in the First Place?
After 22 seasons as track coach at a private, Catholic high school, I moved to the public high school, in the same town. We had a great run but I really needed to down shift a little on my responsibility level and this opportunity has allowed me to just focus on coaching the throwing events. One of the first things that struck me about my new home was the stark difference between nature of the kids' needs.
Sugar Land Fire Department Video
Legal Spotlight: An agency's prerogative to set and enforce medical guidelines
An all-too-common issue encountered by departments revolves around medical inquiries concerning acknoweldged or perceived disabiling conditions. Can an agency make an inquiry into an officer's current medical status? This situation may involve a long-time employee or a veteran returning to duty after serving overseas.
Does What Happens in Corpus Christi, Stay in Corpus Christi?
The City of Corpus Chrisi, Texas was faced with the threat of a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, Employment and Litigation Division. At issue was a long-standing debate over the city's physical fitness test for applicants. In response to an earlier inquiry by Justice about potential adverse impact, Corpus modified its standards. (How do you unilaterally modify standards if they've been validated?)
Question: We have a candidate requesting a reasonable accommodation; what are our obligations?
We got a call into the FF World HQ's recently from a training officer at a department. The department was going to be conducting applicant fitness testing and were notified by a potential candidate that she would be requesting a reasonable accommodation for the sit up test and the 1.5 mile run portions of the battery.
Physical Testing: Have Our Requirements Changed?
A colleague with knowledge of the in-house studies conducted by the FBI at the heart of Bauer shared the following with me in a recent conversation:
the test was validated to assess overall physical fitness as it pertains to the safe and effective performance of the Special Agent position. She (Dr. Grubb) also notes that a primary concern was to assess whether a NAT (National Academy Trainee) would be able to perform in a safe manner during their time at the Academy. In addition, the standards should be required to ensure safe performance as a Special Agent, and not just at the applicant or NAT level.
The Bauer Decision and Job-Relatedness
A central issue in Bauer is the physical fitness test and standards (PFT) required of National Academy Trainees (NAT's) which resulted from two studies conducted by an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist employed by the FBI. In its defense of the test, the FBI offered that the National Academy Training Program (NATP) is designed to ensure a NAT has attained the necessary proficiencies to perform the duties of a special agent
What are the takeaway points from the Bauer Decision? (Part 1)
Retention standards. There, I said it. If there is a topic more likely to divide the entire population related to law enforcement, and in this case the entire population is related to law enforcement, I'm not sure what it is.
Whenever the topic of my job comes up, the person on the other side of the conversation says something like, "Yeah. I was wondering about that: are there fitness requirements for officers on the job."