Vacation during police academy?

[DeltaV]

Vacations at law enforcement agencies are all based off of seniority. If you're scheduled to work a certain day and you want the day off, you'd better hope that the senior officers don't have that day off already. If so, you're going to be screwed.

I haven't had to work one Christmas since I entered LE, but that is due mainly to luck in that it was already my scheduled day off. Now I'm senior enough that I can take a week off around Christmas, which is something that I never could have done a few years ago.

My department has a policy where new hired are not allowed to utilize any vacation time until they have been on the department for six months. Since we do not run an academy, that means six months after they hit the street. You have to understand that things like the academy and the FTO program have set curriculums and training days, and someone deciding that they want to take vacation time in the middle of these things will screw up the training progression. Most departments utilize the San Jose model during FTO training, and being off for one day will put you a day behind everyone else. I can tell you from an administrative point of view as an FTO, this can screw things up when you have 20 people in a training class and 5 of them are one, two, or three days behind everyone else for various reasons. It's not something that we like, and that's why we don't like new people taking vacation during training.

I'm sure your academy will have strict rules about time off. You very well may have long weekends or breaks for holidays (the ones around here have them), however taking any time off whatsoever during the academy is always heavily frowned upon.

[GoDirectly2Jail]

Everyone else managed to not come to that same conclusion, and they gave some very useful information about how academies are scheduled and how vacation time starts accruing. I was asking merely so I can continue to prep myself and my family for what will obviously be a rough year or so. I'm not sure what you're seeing that they aren't.

You might want to look at my response to you in the other thread too. It seems that you're prone to jumping to some very poor conclusions today. Perhaps you should spend less time reading between the lines and more time actually reading the lines in the first place.

Divide and conquer is your plan here?? Good luck with that.

[Legoate]

Everyone else managed to not come to that same conclusion,

UM......NO, most of us thought you wanted vacation days in the middle of the academy or training.

[Creeker]

This guy is going to have fits when he has a deposit on a Cruise or a Time Share scheduled and he gets put on Emergency 12 hour shifts when a Hurricane or riot comes to town and all Leave is cancelled.

Been there, done that.

[Safety Steve]

I was encouraged to take take time off during my six months of fto. I graduated with nearly 100 hours of OT. The chain of command said to burn off the ot before you get off fto. Yes, it set me back a day for everyday I took off. But when the chain of commands speaks, you listen and obey, not question!

Curt is right, get known as the guy always asking why and challenging policy and you will get every crappy detail assignment. That's the best advice you will get. But then again, you will make a post asking why I posted that. Because I know YOU DON'T GET IT! Be Safe.

[grumpyirishman]

With some police academies being about 30 weeks long, do they have scheduled vacation time in there? Like a week in the middle where everyone gets to take off?

Don't forget that immediately after the academy, you'l have 4-6 months of FTO, without a vacation. Your days off will coincide with the days off of your FTO, enjoy them, because after you are cut loose, you may not see a weekend for a while..

But wait!!! You probably won't make it that far since when ask them to build you an individual shower stall so nobody sees your little-buddy, they will ask you to decide if maybe another occupation is in your future!!