GLYNCO, Ga. – The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) will start its reengineered training programs for federal law enforcement officers on June 17, 2020. Students will begin returning to in-residence sites during the first week of June 2020.
“I am proud to announce the restarting of FLETC trainings, critical to ensuring that our law enforcement officers have the most up-to-date and relevant skills for their essential mission of protecting the homeland,” said Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad F. Wolf. “As the nation’s largest provider of law enforcement training, FLETC’s collaborative and comprehensive approach is crucial to the decisions and actions that our law enforcement officers take every day.”
Each year, FLETC and its federal partners train upwards of 60,000 law enforcement officers at FLETC’s in-residence training delivery sites in New Mexico, South Carolina and Georgia. In response to the fast-spreading global pandemic, FLETC temporarily halted all in-residence training at all of its sites on March 20.
FLETC, in consultation with medical professionals, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters, FLETC’s 95+ federal partners, and numerous Federal, State, local, military, academic, and private sector entities, reengineered its training processes and protocols to mitigate risks to its students while ensuring FLETC’s ability to perform its mission: to prepare front-line law enforcement professionals to do their jobs.
FLETC’s reengineered training includes extraordinary measures to ensure arriving students don’t introduce COVID-19 into FLETC’s training environment or into the communities in which FLETC operates. FLETC has implemented a screening process for all students and staff entering FLETC’s gates, to include CDC-suggested questions and temperature checks. Upon arrival and after screening, all students will begin an initial period of isolation on the FLETC Centers. While in the isolation period, students will participate in online training, study written materials, and complete administrative tasks. FLETC will also provide students opportunities for rest and relaxation in FLETC’s athletic training facilities, Student Center and along FLETC’s many miles of walking and running trails. After the initial period of isolation, students will resume training in FLETC’s classrooms, firearms ranges, driving tracks, and physical training facilities, with added social distancing, continuous monitoring, and hygiene protocols. Students will remain on Center through the duration of their training with limited exceptions. FLETC is currently exploring testing capabilities.
“The new FLETC will look just like home to most of our students and staff. Our new training environment, with our emphasis on social distancing, continuous monitoring, and hygiene includes many of the features most communities have already adopted,” said Director Thomas J. Walters
“Our plan to restart on-site training operations strikes the appropriate balance of mitigating risk to those involved in training, while reducing negative impacts to the operations of the many agencies that rely on FLETC for all or part of their law enforcement training.”