Ohio AG Awards STAR Designation to PRCTC Basic Peace Officer Academy
Article presented by Pickaway-Ross CTC Adult Education …
Ohio Attorney General David Yost was in Chillicothe Friday morning to present the Star Training Center designation to the Pickaway-Ross Basic Peace Officer Academy.
The academy is offered in partnership with Ohio University-Chillicothe.
The STAR Training Center program encourages academies to offer qualifying supplemental training and support structure in the belief that raising the bar, over and above required standards, is essential to producing top cadets for the law enforcement agencies that employ them and the communities they serve. The PRCTC academy earned this designation based on the structure and outcomes of its inaugural 2023 academy.
“This year we’re going to add $40-million for training to officers all across the state” said Yost. The AG said they also wanted to focus on the basic training academies like the one in Chillicothe. “There’s a broad variety of police work out there. We didn’t want to just arbitrarily raise standards. What we came up with is the STAR Academy, to recognize the people who wanted to do more than the basic – more than the minimum.”
The main training center for the state is the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA) which is located in London, Ohio. But the Attorney General placed importance upon local basic training centers such as the one offered through PRCTC and OU-Chillicothe.
Yost added among the criteria, an academy has to graduate at least 85-percent of its class and pass the test, complete 15 additional hours of training (the minimum is 747 hours of training) and the cadet needs to have training in high-demand specialty trade like technology policing.
“Those extra above and beyond requirements are what earns an academy a STAR Academy Award” said Yost.
“Obviously we’re excited about the award and the growth of our academy” said academy director Terri Mikesh. “It’s a good basis now to build upon. It’s an important designation for our academy going forward. There’s a lot of proposals out there about training the Attorney Generals office and OPOTA are making going forward and being a STAR Academy is an important piece of those designations as well.”
“Within two months of the end of our 2023 academy, all six of our graduates were full-time employed with agencies in this area” “We’re excited for this day to come.”
Of the current academy, two are already employed by the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Department, another is in the cadet dispatcher program with the Circleville Police Department and another with the Ross County Sheriff’s Department. Mikesh said local agencies began hiring members last year during the academy.
Speaking on the partnership between OU-Chillicothe and PRCTC, Dean Roberta Milliken said “It’s a wonderful accolade and well deserved. A lot of it has to do, if not everything has do with the leadership of Terri Mikesh. She’s a gem and she certainly know what she speaks of. And her experience has proven her to be just a wonderful instructor. I think with her at the helm I think the program in really good hands.”
Deam Milliken and PRCTC Superintendent Jonathan Davis were in staunch agreement about the partnership between the two institutions, especially with the academy. “We’re appreciative of the award, but we’re also appreciative of our partnership” said Milliken. “It’s a good thing and we’re always happy to find ways that we can work together to the betterment of our community.”
As a career center, being able to run service-minded programs is really at the corps of what we do” said Davis. “These folks are literally working in our communities to better the lives of all who live year. I’m indebted to the collaborative spirit of Dean Milliken and as she noted, we’ve hired the best of the best in Terri Mikesh.”
The current class of cadets will complete their training in November of 2024. To learn more about the academy, visit https://www.pickawayross.com/o/ae/page/basic-peace-officer-academy
