Last year, the Explorers began competing for Allen for their first full year. It was also their first time to go to state. This summer, the club went to their first state competition and won third place in the bomb threat scenario.

The Explorers began as an extension to the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice classes that were recently added to Allen. Through the club, the students are able to forge connections in the field of law enforcement by training and competing in simulations similar to real-life circumstances.

“They oftentimes don’t know what sort of circumstances there are,” Law Enforcement teacher Tiffany Nickles said. “So they learn how to handle those scenarios like a real officer from beginning to end — [for example] communicating with dispatch to working with a team to deciding how to enter and what it’s like inside.”

The four-man team that competed at state this summer consisted of sophomore Cameran LaTour, juniors Carson Porter and Jacob Rivers and former student Chase Pearson. The team ran eight scenarios over two days and were graded on how they handled the situations.

“There were 72 teams that participated, so they’re getting to see how these other teams are carrying out their scenarios,” Nickles said. “Even if they’re not competing, they’re still learning and bringing back to the [club] a learning experience.”

The nature of the club helps the students with their future career plans as well. Nickles says that the club and the class allow students to prepare for careers in the field other than policing, such as forensics and law.

“It helps pinpoint what you want to do in law enforcement,” junior Ashley Minnich said. “Most people have different things they want to do, but once you’re in this club, it helps narrow it down specifically to what you want to do.”

Explorers also allows students to network with local law enforcement officers, and according to Rivers, it confirms what he wants to do later in life and gives him more incentive to place higher and learn more.

“It helps with training for [a] law enforcement career, and then you get to meet a lot of new people,” Rivers said.

The program is a partnership between the school and the Student Resource Officers (SROs) with the police department allowing the school’s officers to spend a lot of time with the students.

“The program would not run without the dedication of our SROs,” Nickles said. “Chief Harvey has very much backed up and supported our program [by] giving the officers time to work with the kids.”

Nationals for the club will happen in the summer of 2018, and by then, Nickles hopes that the young team will be ready. But until then, she says their focus is on their second full year of competing.

“Most of [the students] are juniors or sophomores, so we’ve got at least two or three years,” Nickles said. “They’ve already got such a great foundation in their training that I’m very hopeful that they will just blow it out of the water and outperform what they did in their first year.”