MEDT 8480: Outline of Program

Evaluation Plan

The Police Explorers Program is an educational program that fosters a personal

awareness of the criminal justice system through training, practical experiences,
competitions, and other activities for students between the ages of 13 and 20. The
program promotes personal growth through character development, respect for the rule
of the law, physical fitness, good citizenship, and patriotism. Students can earn course
credits through the SkillsUSA partnership which helps promote skilled workers
throughout America.

Programs are offered at many local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies
around the county. The Explorer program has been endorsed by professional
organizations such as the International Chiefs of Police Association, the National
Sheriffs Association as well as the Boy Scouts of America.

The program is needed in order to educate students about how the criminal justice
process works, and the purpose of law enforcement. This program also helps fulfill the
societal responsibility of teaching young people how to be productive citizens and
active in their respective communities.

The foundational aspects of the program begin within the students high school. The
Explorer Program is typically sponsored by a teacher at the school or the school
resource officer, and this individual is responsible for acting as a liaison between the
certified law enforcement trainers and the students. These, along with members of the
community, serve as the inputs for the program. Cohorts of students are established
and students attend weekly or bi-weekly sessions with training officers with their cohort
group members. In addition to classroom training, and practical exercises, Explorer
recruits accompany training officers on ride alongs, and court proceedings. Student
recruits are also expected to participate in community service events that are
frequently held throughout the year-long program. These activities lead to the creation
of a recruit portfolio of sorts a compilation of training officer evaluations, and
assessments as well as community performance surveys, and general feedback
solicited from members of the community. Many participating high schools offer
students academic credit for their contribution to the community through the program.
Other schools offer volunteer hours required for honor status upon graduation. These
short term outcomes in addition to proficiency in law enforcement policies, procedures,
and tactics help create a greater sense of trust for community police officer and help to
instill the value of camaraderie amongst the student recruits. This positive shift in turn
fosters a more secure community, and encourages greater academic success in
students. The Explorer Program is designed to create a chain reaction of positive
events in the life of students, and their future career aspirations in law enforcement, but
the greater outcome is that students become active citizens in a productive, and
nurturing community.

Evaluation Purpose
The Explorer Program should be evaluated because the program staff seeks to ensure
that the specified goals are being met. The evaluation will examine the Explorer
Program to be sure that all facets of the program are successful in producing students
who are informed about the law enforcement process and career, and who also seek to
further their education related to law enforcement. The evaluation will also examine if
the program influences students to have more academic success and also if there is a
decrease in juvenile crimes in the area. The evaluation will be used to inform
program staff on how the curriculum is being carried out by both the training officers,
and the cooperating high school teacher.

The three evaluation questions that will be answered through the process of assessing
the programs effectiveness are:

Does participation in the program foster increased academic success for student
recruits?
Does the program cause a decrease in juvenile related crimes committed in the
community?
Are Explorer Training officers teaching the program curriculum according to the
specifications set forth by the supervisory personnel in charge of the program?

These three questions are key to the overall mission of the program which is to build
character and instill responsibility in high school students. The questions posed all
relate to varying aspects of the character building process. Students who are
academically successful see the value in learning and understand that school is a
crucial building block to their future success. Achieving a successful experience at
school is one of the intermediate outcomes of the program, and this is directly linked to
one of the more long-term goals of the Explorer Program which is to foster a life-long
love of learning and a pursuit of continued education. Additionally, juveniles who place
an importance on learning, and on keeping their community safe are far less likely to
engage in crime-related activities. Thus, tying in with another long-term goal of the
program: creating a safer community that values conviviality and fellowship. Answering
these three questions can effectively evaluate the programs success or failure and
determine the probability of achieving the long-term outcomes articulated.

The evaluation team consists of four educators:

(1) Sundi Cowser is a middle school library media specialist in Paulding County. She is a
former Language Arts and Reading teacher, and has been in education for seven
years.

(2) Stephanie Stone is a high school language arts teacher who works in Gwinnett County,
Georgia. Mrs. Stone has taught grades 9-12 and has experience teaching students
ranging from special ed to Advanced Placement abilities. Currently, she serves as the
language arts instructional coordinator for the school which involves a high level of
leadership. She is responsible for conducting teaching evaluations using the GTES
standards and serves as the cluster-wide literacy coach. These qualifications make
her an excellent evaluator when it comes to assessing student success and
achievement; in her capacities as literacy coach and instructional coordinator, she
frequently compiles data for course teams to analyze and use as tools to drive future
instruction. Additionally, she is well experienced in analyzing data to discern the
effectiveness of educational programs. She has participated in effectiveness
assessments of Advanced Placement courses, credit recovery modules, and school-
wide remediation initiatives. Mrs. Stone is familiar with the Explorer Program and
other law enforcement programs; she is married to a police detective who is a sixteen-
year veteran of the Alpharetta police force. Her knowledge of law enforcements
relationship with the community has been strengthened due to her involvement in
SOULO, Supporting Our Uniformed Loved Ones. This is an organization that facilitates
monthly gatherings for law enforcement agents and their families in order to educate
spouses and children of police officers about the mental and physical pressures of the
job and the individual programs offered by the agency. Mrs. Stone serves as one of
the coordinators for the program and has worked extensively with officers who
implement community-based programs such as the Explorers Program.

(3) Michelle Hanners is a middle school math teacher who has been in education for 24
years. She has spent 16 years in public education teaching middle school math and
science; prior to that she was in a Christian school and taught all grade levels from pre-
k to 8th grade. She has served on the Leadership team for almost all 16 years in
public education, at two different schools. She has also served on numerous
committees, from behavior interventions to grant writing. These leadership positions
have required her to observe and evaluate co-workers in an objective manner and to
effectively communicate strengths and weaknesses in a constructive manner. Mrs.
Hanners is married to an Investigator and K-9 Handler with the Fayette County Sheriffs
Office. He has been employed in law enforcement for 16 years. Mrs. Hanners is
familiar with the Explorers program through her involvement with We Ride to Provide
a non-profit organization that provides first aid kits to police k-9s, and provides a way
to memorialize k-9s that pass away throughout the year. The Porterdale Police Chief
and his wife head up We Ride to Provide, and prior to becoming Chief, he was the
 leader of their Police Explorers program. Her working knowledge as well as the
resources available to her, coupled with her leadership training and knowledge from
working with her schools make her a good candidate to evaluate this program.

(4) Njemele Bush is an Education Technology Specialist at Kennesaw State University.

She is a former Business and Computer Science Teacher with Fulton and Clayton
County Schools. She has over 13 years of teaching experience, both in the physical
and online setting. She has leadership experience as she served as the Lead
Business Teacher at Langston Hughes High School for the last two years. Also with this
role, she has also served a Girl Scout Troop Leader and Lead Future Business
Leaders of America Adviser. She is familiar with the Police Explorers program and
finds that it is helpful to the community.

The data that will be collected and used to answer each evaluation question is the
responses from survey and interviews of participants and instructors in the program.
The data will be evaluated by response as well as ratings provided by each individual.

The methods used to collect data will be surveys created in Google Forms. The
responses will be itemized and organized in an easy to read format. Those who have
troubles with access to the Form will be interviewed using a face to face
questionnaire. Both will have a quantitative analysis for the purpose of the analyzing
information.

Question Data to be Collected Completed by whom

Increased Academic Student records Recruit

Success for recruits Academic Success score Training officer
reports Cooperating teacher

Decrease in Juvenile Juvenile Crime statistics Patrol officers in the

Related crimes community
Members in the community

Adherence to program Observations by and Program supervisors

curriculum supervisors
Surveys Recruits
For question 1: Does participation in the program foster increased academic success
for student recruits?

The data collected will primarily consist of student records, and academic success
score reports for the time periods before the recruit entered the program and after a
specified time involved in the program. Additionally, surveys will be utilized to gather
pertinent information on student success. These surveys are be completed by the
recruit, the training officer working in direct contact with the recruit as well as the
cooperating teacher who is in charge of the Explorer Program at the school.

For question 2: Does the program cause a decrease in juvenile related crimes
committed in the community?

The data that will be collected includes juvenile crime statistics of the Explorer Program
community. These statistics will need to be cultivated for a time period prior to the
successful implementation of the program, and should be compared to statistics
gathered after the program has been up and running for a specified period of time.
Evaluation data will also be in the form of questionnaires distributed to patrol officers in
the community to discern the level of change seen on the streets of the community. A
final component of data will be extracted from surveys completed by members of the
community to assess their perception of the change in juvenile-related crimes in the
area.

For question 3: Are Explorer Training officers teaching the program curriculum
according to the specifications set forth by the supervisory personnel in charge of the
program?

To address this question, we will gather information from questionnaires filled out by
recruits. This will allow evaluators to get a clear picture of the implementation of
curriculum by the training officers and the frequency at which modifications or
alterations might be made to the training program. Additionally, research in the form of
supervisory observations will be culled to assess officer adherence to establish
program curriculum and training practices.

As it is not always necessary to collect new data, we will be relying on data that has
been previously compiled to use as a comparison for new data that will be gathered.
The existing datasets targeted will be the school records, and student success scores
compiled by schools previously. This type of data is routinely gathered by
administrators to assess the effectiveness of teachers and relevance of courses. Our
evaluation team will need to gain access to this data, and it will be important to note
that we wont be analyzing the scores for individual students, but will look at the entire
recruit cohort as a whole. Of course, we will need to determine from school
administrators how this information is gathered, and what individual components make
up the success and achievement score datasets. This data is quantitative and allows
the evaluator to identify patterns in student achievement while adhering to a structured
set of values and criteria.

Another existing dataset that will be utilized are the juvenile crime statistics gathered
and published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This governmental organization
samples households in specified communities in order to determine the degree and
frequency of crimes committed. This information is typically compiled and published
every year; however, it is possible to get bi-annual data if a request is made.

The last existing dataset incorporated into the evaluation of the Explorer Program are
the statistics from other law enforcement agencies that participate in the program.
Each agency is responsible for recording information as to their training practices and
policies and these are a matter of public record because they pertain to county or city-
funded program. Many law enforcement agencies also compile statistics that pertain to
recruit engagement, involvement, attendance, and attrition. While some of this existing
information may not be pertinent to the program we are evaluating, it would be easy to
sift through and extract only the data that is related to this particular evaluation.

New data will be collected via surveys completed by recruits, training officers,
cooperating teachers and community members. These surveys will be designed with a
mixed-method in mind. The first half of the surveys will be quantitative in nature in that
the respondents will be asked to rank satisfaction of varying aspects of the program on
a scale from 1 to 5. This will be the best way to track change in the program over a
specified period of time and will allow the evaluators to track changes and monitor
success with high fidelity.

The second part of the survey that respondents will be asked to complete will be more
qualitative in nature in that it will consist of open-ended questions for participants to
write in answers to. The answers that are gathered will vary and it would be very time-
consuming to try and turn this information into numerical data. This data wouldnt be
evaluated in terms of the program as a whole, but would allow evaluators with the
ability to discern how individual recruits, training officers, cooperating teachers, and
community members think differently about the program. This qualitative approach
would allow for an analysis of individual motivations or reasons behind the quantitative
responses provided. This qualitative piece would be most crucial to answering the third
evaluation question: What components of the Explorer Training Program need to be
added or removed from the program to further result in the outcome of decreased
juvenile crime in the community?

The data sampling will have a purposeful design. First the survey questionnaires will
be self-administered to allow respondents with the ability to reflect on responses. The
first part will consist of short, simple, and clearly worded yes/no statements. This
questionnaire will have been vetted and previously administered to a group of
individuals to ensure clarity. For the surveys completed by the recruits, and training
officers, a simple sampling process will be utilized. Five persons in each of these
categories will be randomly selected to participate in the survey. Due to the fact that
there is only one cooperating teacher who works closely with the Explorers Program,
that individual will be automatically integrating into the survey sample. The sample
size for the survey taken by members of the community will be determined using a
stratified random sampling method. This will ensure that varying ages, race, and
genders will be represented in the data collection. In this data sample, approximately
100 surveys will be sent out. If 80% of the survey are returned, 50% will be used as
the data sample. This will then be analyzed for the purpose of the evaluation.

The intended analysis will be of mixed methods. Due to the fact that the questions are
rating format as well as open-ended, it is conclusive that both methods should be used
to evaluate the program. The quantitative approach requires mathematical analytics of
the rankings provided by respondents. The open-ended questions will need to be
compiled and cross-referenced with the overall picture provided by the survey
rankings. Both, combined with analysis of existing datasets, will provide insight as to
how the program is performing and the need for improvements where necessary.

Standard(s)/Benchmarks for Evaluation Questions

Program Goal one - Students who participate in Police Explorers program through their
school will increase their academic success by 5% in all academic classes.

Evaluation Question - Does participation in the program foster increased academic

success for student recruits?

This question is appropriate and answerable. The academic achievement is

measureable, looking for a 5% increase in the academic grades throughout the
duration of the program. Since one of the goals of the program is to change academic
standing, this question and its goal makes sense.
Program Goal two - Communities that have Explorers programs whether in schools or
in the community will see a 10% decrease in juvenile criminal activity after two years of
program implementation. Each subsequent year, a 2.5% decrease should be expected.

Evaluation Question - Does the program cause a decrease in juvenile related crimes
committed in the community?

This question is appropriate and measureable. The answer will take several years of
successful program implementation to be answerable. This is a longer term goal than
students academic success.

Program Goal three - Explorer Training officers should be following the training
curriculum 90% of the class time or more. Ideally, the curriculum should be followed
100% of the time, but realizing that students may ask unrelated questions, it is realized
that 100% may be impossible.

Evaluation Question - Are Explorer Training officers teaching the program curriculum
according to the specifications set forth by the supervisory personnel in charge of the
program?

This question is appropriate and measureable. Just the same way that teachers are
evaluated using an effectiveness measure, this program has teaching components that
supervisors should ensure are being followed. This goal should be assessed starting
early and continually in the program.

References:

Go Law Enforcement. (2016) Police Explorer Programs. Retrieved from

http://www.golawenforcement.com/PoliceExplorer.htm

Learning for Life Corporation. (2016). Law Enforcement Career Exploring. Retrieved
from
http://www.exploring.org/exploring-discover-future/law-enforcement-career-
exploring/