Vacation during police academy?

[wantiko]

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?

And how does vacation time as a new cop work? Are you accruing vacation time from the date you start the academy? I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation. That would be over a year of solid work with no break.

[PapaBear]

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?

And how does vacation time as a new cop work? Are you accruing vacation time from the date you start the academy? I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation. That would be over a year of solid work with no break.

The CHP academy offers a longer weekend (3 or 4 days) break near the middle portion of training - somewhere after 14 weeks. Beyond that, cadets are there for the duration - 28 weeks.

The time off is based on accumulated work hours over and above 40 hours per work week. Some days are extended due to the type of training - night driving, night shooting, etc; therefore, the extended time off clears and balances the books.

Upon graduation, graduating officers are given between 5 and 7 days to report to their new assignments - that time also comes from the accumulated training hours at the academy.

[greg72982]

I'm gonna be blunt with you wantiko. If you are looking for a job where you get holidays and weekends off apply at your local bank. In a lot of departments you wont even get vacation until after the first year (that doesn't include the academy btw).

You will be the low man when you start out so expect to work holidays, weekends, and other shifts people don't want. If that's gonna irritate the wife then like I said earlier, consider another field.

As for the academy we had one Monday off through the 19 weeks and other than that if you missed even an hour you would have to come back the next academy and make the entire block up.

[GoDirectly2Jail]

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?

And how does vacation time as a new cop work? Are you accruing vacation time from the date you start the academy? I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation. That would be over a year of solid work with no break.

You want the job, or not?

Okay, now that my initial reaction is out of the way - no, there is no vacation built into most academies. That time is lengthy for a reason - there's a lot you need to know, and limited time to teach you. And if you miss more than 2-3 days AT MOST, it will be very hard to make that time up (if not impossible).

As to whether or not you accrue benefits in the academy, that is an individual agency question. In LE, any time off would need to be requested and approved (and you will be the low man on the totem pole as far as seniority goes.)

[Legoate]

It would be a safe bet to just plan on working nights, every weekend with no holidays off for the first 5 years of your career. That way, you won't be disappointed when it happens.

Even with years on you will still get bumped off vacations by people much more senior to you. I picked a week in mid november next year I wanted off. I wasn't even allowed to sign up for it because the people #1 and #4 in patrol seniority were already signed up for that spot. Being #111 in seniority meant I get the pleasure of working that week even if I had a family vacation planned.

[wantiko]

Wow. I guess the department I have an offer at has moved forward fifty years in terms of how it treats its officers! We are guaranteed a certain number of full weekends off, plus either Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday) or Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, no matter what.

[Curt581]

So you haven't even started this job yet... and you're asking how soon you can get vacation?

If I was your training instructor, and you asked me that question, I'd make it my personal mission to give you every **** detail that came along, just for having the audacity to think the agency owes you anything at all before the end of your first year.

You're going to be a pill to work with, I can tell.

As for the guaranteed weekends and holidays you describe, I call B.S.

[wantiko]

So you haven't even started this job yet... and you're asking how soon you can get vacation?

No. If you actually read the original post, you'd realize I was asking nothing of the sort.

Since I'll likely be in a very long academy that'll last during the entire spring and summer of next year, I was simply asking whether the academy took a break at all. I'm sure the instructors would like a week off too. A fairly harmless and sensible question that has, like a game of Chinese Whispers, managed to get blown out of all proportion by a series of responses in which my original question was slightly misunderstood to an increasingly ridiculous degree.

It's quite a jump from my original question to thinking that I was asking how soon I can get a vacation, isn't it?

[Sierra]

ICE went straight through with no breaks. I am sure most other agencies are the same way. The only breaks in training came from holidays. The only time it was feasible for me to go home was for Thanksgiving where they allowed us to buy Friday with accumulated leave. If you didn't buy it, you were required to report in Friday for training.

Leave accumulation, at least for us, began when you reported to the office prior to the academy. I had 4 days in the bank, after spending one for Thanksgiving, when I graduated.

Being an academy instructor is simply an assignment. This is neither grade school nor college. An instructor would still have to request the time off, have it granted, and have another instructor fill in for him.

[BP348]

As stated you won't get any time off during the academy. If you are lucky and are at the academy during one of the big holidays you may get that ONE day off. Example: Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, you will probably get that Thursday off but it will be back to normal come Friday.

Speaking for the USBP academy, yes, you get some vacation time built up while attending the academy. You then burn up those 3 -5 days (depending on how much time you earn) moving and doing other stuff before starting at your assigned station. The lucky ones are the ones who live in or near the town where they are going to work.

Every academy is different. At the USBP academy instructors who are on detail (TDY) to the academy are not allowed to take vacation while assigned to the academy.

If this department guarantes a certain number of full weekends off, plus either Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday) or Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, no matter what. That's great!! Not many do that. Matter of fact I don't know of a single PD that offers a schedule like that. Federal 1811 positions are different.

[Insayn]

We have a 32 week academy. Monday through Friday. The weekends are yours as well as any administrative holidays that fall in that particular class schedule, however if your serious about your future most tend to study. Since the state requires so many hours of training it isn't feasable to take time off while in the academy or while on field training. The number of academy staff and the cadre of outside instructors make it easy for them to take time off.
Recruits begin earning sick and vacation time as soon as they start the academy here. I believe they earn 6 hours of vacation for every pay period, so essentially earning 12 days. It is stressed not to take time off during field training because of the rotations and you will fall behind your classmates.
IMO...a recruit that tries to take time off during field training makes me think of squirrels and I know that is the consensus with the peers. It's not exactly the reputation you want to develop early on. If this is the profession you choose then you and your family need to understand the sacrafices involved overall.

[GoDirectly2Jail]

No. If you actually read the original post, you'd realize I was asking nothing of the sort.

Since I'll likely be in a very long academy that'll last during the entire spring and summer of next year, I was simply asking whether the academy took a break at all. I'm sure the instructors would like a week off too. A fairly harmless and sensible question that has, like a game of Chinese Whispers, managed to get blown out of all proportion by a series of responses in which my original question was slightly misunderstood to an increasingly ridiculous degree.

It's quite a jump from my original question to thinking that I was asking how soon I can get a vacation, isn't it?

Quite a jump??? Your statement, "I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation," seriously implies your desire to have a vacation, does it not?

You realize that the average street officer gets told more lies and half-truths during their day than anyone else on the planet, right? Because of that, reading between the lines and taking the 5% nugget of truth out of what someone says becomes a highly honed skill. That is what is going on right now in this thread, so don't try to feed us a line of B.S. Trust me, we get our fill of it during our day jobs.

One more thing. When you say, "I was simply asking whether the academy took a break at all. I'm sure the instructors would like a week off too," relies on the false premise that academy instruction does not rotate. Officers and trainers have specialities, therefore teaching assignments vary depending on the curriculum for that day.

[Samuel]

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?

And how does vacation time as a new cop work? Are you accruing vacation time from the date you start the academy? I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation. That would be over a year of solid work with no break.

Hey, just a quick heads up - your questions are getting more and more stupid. You might want to quit soon.

[phantasm]

I had a 26 week academy, and 2 classroom instructors and 1 gym instructor for my company. There were approximately 44 companies in the academy at the time, 22 performing day tours, and 22 on 4x12s. I think that it would be possible to spare a few instructors on vacation at any given time. We were given 1 day off in the academy, Thanksgiving day, and we had to use one of our vacation days.

No vacation in the academy. Its even in our patrol guide that vacation is not authorized for "recruit training"

[wantiko]

Quite a jump??? Your statement, "I don't think the wife will be too happy with a 30 week academy, followed by having to work another 6 months in order to get enough days to take a week off for a family vacation," seriously implies your desire to have a vacation, does it not?

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.