New Homeland Security H.S. trains next generation of First Responders

Every student at the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security will have a mentor for all four years of high school, preparing them for a career in Homeland Security.

PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2008

Thomas Little, Board Chairman of America's first Homeland Security High School in Wilmington, DE, told Homeland Security executives today that 157 people are planned to be mentors for the school’s first class of 200 students.

“As mentors, they will communicate with the students by email anticipating a regular weekly, even daily, response ,” Little told a session at the Homeland Security Science and Technology Stakeholders Conference here.

“Every student at the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security will have a mentor for all four years of high school,” said Little, a New Castle attorney specializing in Family Court parents neglect and abuse issues.

“Mentors are volunteers from the community, men and women who have achieved success and want young people to have the same positive opportunities,” he said.

Describing the school, he told attendees that students will be trained in skills critically needed by the emerging Homeland Security industry as well as traditional high school academic subjects and nontraditional sports.

“By the time they graduate, each student will be prepared to work as a professional driver, a heavy equipment operator, a fireman, a policeman, a correctional officer, a 911 operator and in air safety, water safety and other occupations,” Little said. Those who want to go to college can do so because the curriculum for all cadets is standard college prep.

There is also a unique VOLUNTARY random drug test plan in place for Cadets who plan a First responder career that can begin in the junior year and become part of their official high school record upon graduation,

“I’ve been told recently that out of 400 possible applicants for the Wilmington Police Department, less than 50 qualified in the drug test,” Little said.

The school’s planned headquarters is at a Walnut Street YMCA in Wilmington, where the first class will attend school in 2010.

Uniforms will be required for the school; which will be run under a military-style discipline. Mandatory parental conferences will be held monthly.

Wilmington is Delaware’s largest city. It is a suburb of Philadelphia.