Nacogdoches High School students prepare for law enforcement competition, future careers

NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KTRE) - Out of the 28 Nacogdoches High School Students that took part in the Regional Law Enforcement competition, 22 of them are making their way to the state competition.

“We try to prepare them with real life scenarios,” said Monica Newberg, the Law Enforcement Instructor at Nacogdoches High School. “Most of the training that they do is all hands-on training.”

The competitions the Student Response Teams, or S.R.T., participate in are everyday thing that happen in law enforcement, like inmate processing traffic stops, and SWAT scenarios.

Most of the members are learning these skills not just for extracurricular purposes, but for their future careers.

“I’m going into the law pathway, so I want to be a lawyer and eventually a judge.,” Janiyia Williams said. “This class has opened up many opportunities for that. Like last year we had an attorney come. We did court last year for S.R.T.’s.”

With so many facets of law enforcement that they’re learning, even the students who came into the program without a defined career path they wanted to take have their eyes now set on law enforcement in the future.

“It’s taught me a lot,” Jessica Leon said. “It’s set me on a path that I know 100 percent sure I want to go on.”

Those passions for the future are already translating to present success, with many first and second places in regional competitions, and they hope with more when state competitions start, all while they focus on their future law enforcement careers.

“It gives insights to different careers out there,” Williams said. “So for us to have this is very important for me to get a head start on you know life.”

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