Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Coroner Chills: John Powell, Eddie Watson, Crystal Cortez, and Nicole Quarisma, all 17 (from left) students in a MetroEd law enforcement class, react to the sights and smells during a tour of the autopsy room at the County Medical Examiner/Coroner's Office in San Jose.
Law enforcement students take a trip to the county coroner's office
High school career class gives youths real police training
By Kate Carter
While many remembered the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a group of high school students was getting an eyeful, as well as a noseful, of what defending people against crime involves.
Students in Rico Sciaky's law enforcement class at the Central County Occupational Center/Program (CCOC/P) took a tour of the County Medical Examiner/Coroner's office March 11 as part of their training about policing and other public safety professions.
"Put the volume on zero," Sciaky said to the 28 high school juniors and seniors from around the county as they prepared to get off the bus for the tour. "You guys are the best. Let's go."
The students, most in uniform, then exited the bus and formed two lines, then walked singlefile into the coroner's office and waited silently in the foyer until they began the tour.
The group was a bundle of nervous energy, though, anticipating seeing the inside of the office's refrigerator, where it examined and autopsied bodies are kept until they can be claimed, and the autopsy room.
Celia Crom, the coroner's administrative support officer, has given several of Sciaky's classes tours of the facility since the class' inception about a year and a half ago. She said his students are always the best behaved and most professional of all the people she takes through the office.
Sciaky said he makes his class, which meets three hours every day Monday through Friday all year, like going to work, holding the students to the same standards of dress and grooming, professionalism and performance as regular police officers.
"Everybody in here has the desire to go into law enforcement or related professions," he said. "This really prepares them for this career. They have to have it in their hearts to be here, because there's a lot of work."
The class is one of 32 different programs offered by the Metropolitan Education District's CCOC/P. MetroED provides about 70,000 people in Santa Clara County with high school and adult occupational instruction. CCOC/P is a division of MetroED, which provides training at its Hillsdale Avenue campus, just east of Willow Glen, to more than 25,000 high school juniors and seniors in the San Jose Unified, Campbell Union, East Side Union, Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union, Milpitas Unified and Santa Clara Unified school districts, as well as adults.
"Our mission is to provide career technical training to students," said CCOC/P Principal Linda Luther. "Our students come to us for a variety of reasons. We have the whole gamut of what you'd find at a normal high school."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Future Law Enforcement: High school students enrolled in a MetroEd law enforcement class arrive at the County Medical Examiner/Coroner's Office for a tour of the facility.
Luther said that students who prefer to learn by doing are attracted to the school's programs, which include a wide range of fields, from electronics and automotive to business and health occupations. The school also provides students interested in a particular field the chance to try it out and get ahead before graduating from high school. Juniors and seniors enroll in courses at CCOC/P through their high school counselors.
But for the law enforcement class, Sciaky holds his students to an even higher standard and interviews prospective students before admitting them to his class, making sure they are eligible to be law enforcement professionals and haven't been convicted of any misdemeanors or felonies.
"My goal is to keep these kids on the straight and narrow," Sciaky said. "There are so many places where you can get a job with a high school diploma, and hiring standards are so high right now in law enforcement. It's a win-win situation."
However, a recent budget proposal by Gov. Gray Davis to consolidate funding for vocational programs in community colleges would negate the advantages of the program Sciaky is trying to expand.
"Of course, at this point it's only a concept," said MetroED spokeswoman Joyce Monda of the proposal, which would remove all the school's funding. "That would pretty much eliminate us. It would mean that high school students wouldn't have the option of choosing these programs at a regional occupational center. Community colleges are not set up for high school students at this point."
Monda added that there is no way yet to know how the proposal would affect students, if passed, but the district is opposing it and working with state legislators to make sure it doesn't become more than an idea.
Sciaky is working with officers at the San Jose Police Department and the county sheriff's office to develop more opportunities for the students in his class to experience actual law enforcement facilities, responsibilities and bureaucracy. Sciaky said he would like to offer a second year of the class that would give students credit for participating in internships in the departments.
One of his students this year is even a Youth Cadet with the sheriff's office.
"We groom them for law enforcement and develop a pool of kids to turn into deputies," said Sheriff's Sgt. Blayn Persiani, in the reserve and community services division. Persiani has been working with Sciaky on developing more programs together and says the class helps students decide if law enforcement is for them before departments make an investment in them.
"I think we hope to collaborate with him for the purpose of enlarging our pool of applicants," Persiani said. "There is a shortage of applications statewide in law enforcement. It's hard in this county because the cost of living is so high. We're going everywhere to get people."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Studying Death and its Causes: Marcel Watson, a pathology technician at the County Medical Examiner/Coroner's Office, speaks to students in Rico Sciaky's law enforcement class about what's involved in performing autopsies.
The class also teaches students about the law, what their rights are, and what they can expect from law enforcement personnel.
"You learn what you can and can't do to your car; what are your rights when you're talking to police," said René Picazo, 18, a senior at Willow Glen High School and a student in the law enforcement class. "We do accident reports; we actually learn to take people's fingerprints, how to handcuff people, how to talk to suspects."
Sciaky has his students use actual police academy workbooks and do worksheets that officers in training use. The students take the same tests for competency and advancement as police officers, earn ranks and do two days of physical training each week. They also use the same firearms training system as the military and law enforcement to develop decision-making skills in tense and fast-paced situations.
Sciaky is a reserve deputy with the San Mateo County's Sheriff's Office and worked fulltime in law enforcement beginning in the 1980s. He decided about a year and a half ago that he wanted to do more outreach to potential recruits and found an opening at CCOC/P for the law enforcement class teaching position.
"Today's generation is much different than the generation 25 to 30 years ago," he said. "Some find it more difficult to take discipline; they're turned off by it. Here, they live it and they can see the value of it. This is the way the profession is. We really have to start with the farm system, and this is the farm system."
Picazo said he was interested in a career in law enforcement and found out about the class from one of its students from last year, a classmate of his, Beth Gomez, 18, also a senior at Willow Glen High School and president of the senior class.
"I'm interested in becoming a parole officer, a probation officer," Picazo said. "I want to do something that serves the community, and something that's fun, something with a siren."
He, like Gomez, plans to attend a junior college and then transfer to a four-year university before embarking on a law enforcement career.
"I was interested in going into the probation department," said Gomez. "I'm still interested in it. I want to help people and make a difference. What you write [in probation reports] is their future."
She and Picazo also said the class is well respected by other students at CCOC/P, and there is a waiting list to take the class.
"Everyone just kind of looked up to the law enforcement class," Gomez said.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Examining Corpses: Several instruments used for performing autopsies at the County Medical Examiner/Coroner's Office in San Jose neatly hang ready for use. Common household items and professional surgical tools are used during procedures.
Picazo said other students at first made fun of the class' appearance, but soon were asking questions about what it was all about and became interested.
"I like the uniform," he said. "It gives kind of a superior look. We have to look good in our uniforms; we have to look very professional."
"I think I matured a lot in that class," Gomez said, adding that she increased her grade point average to above a 3.5 after the class. She credits Sciaky with her newfound academic success.
"He just loves to teach; he's a great teacher, the way that he teaches the class and the attitude that he has toward you," she said. "He's always there when you need him."
She also said the trip to the coroner's office was a memorable one.
"Once you get in there, it's like, 'Wow,'" she said.
Crom gave the students there on March 11 a brief presentation about the coroner's office and the cases it takes. She said there are about 10,000 deaths in the county every year, and 3,000 are referred to the coroner. About 1,000 of those are brought to the office, and it conducts only about 700 or 800 autopsies a year. She also said there are only about 50 homicides in the county every year.
She then described how autopsies are performed, and the squirming in the room began. The students were reminded to breathe through their mouths to lessen the effect of the refrigerator's and laboratory's smells, which some students described as "like a fish shop," and they were reminded several times to not touch anything.
Then the group headed off, silently and in singlefile from the conference room to the labs. Everyone had to put on blue paper booties, was again reminded to not touch anything, and led into the refrigerator, where more than a dozen bodies were laid out and covered on trays. Students shuffled their feet and gazed around, shifting their eyes from exposed body parts, and then hurrying out when time was up.
Then they went to the autopsy room, where the students saw several technicians preparing a body for autopsy. The students took their cues from Sciaky and the technicians, who were professional and respectful around the bodies, and held their own.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
