Medill News Service article - Published: Oct. 17, 2001

High schoolers still eager for emergency careers

By Patrick Cooper and Ben Bryant
Medill News Service

The kids in Commander Frank Perry's classes are asking questions. Wannabe cops and firefighters, they've got questions about the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax scares, the situations to which emergency workers nationwide are trying to find answers.

Perry is a commander in the Chicago Fire Department's diversity office, and the students are members of the city's Police and Firefighter Training Academy Program. With after-school sessions and summer internships, they are being groomed for careers of fighting crimes and fires.

Now, after hundreds of New York police and firefighters died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the students are thinking about the work of fighting terrorists. On Wednesday, Perry said he and other program teachers have been straightforward about their jobs' new dangers.

"We really tell them the truth. We don't want to misguide them or give them a sense of false security," he said. "We tell them there's a chance you'll have to sacrifice your well being or life."

Leaders at the program say they have been encouraged by their students' reactions to the attacks and the events that have followed -- reactions of determination and pride, not fear.

"They want to give something back. They want to serve the public," said Carl Peterson, city-wide coordinator of the program for the Chicago Public Schools. "I think more of them are more committed to the program, about how they can help."

"And just seeing that their fellow brothers and sisters in New York were committed" meant a great deal to the students. In New York, police and firefighters "didn't think twice about going in," and the students realized that, Peterson said. " I think a lot of them were proud to be in this program."

Students, currently numbering about 400, enter the program during their junior year of high school, and many earn two-year scholarships to the City Colleges of Chicago. After earning an associate's degree in public safety, they can apply for the city's police and fire department academies, attend a four-year college or pursue other careers in law enforcement or the armed forces.

Taught by Chicago police and fire officers, the program meets after school three times a week during the school year and involves internships during summers. Teachers, drawn from the police and fire departments and City Colleges, work with students on academics, public safety education and physical fitness.

In each class, after dealing with the day's course work, the instructors leave extra time to answer questions about homework or have discussions, Perry said. Recently, these discussions have often turned toward the news, to the latest, scariest issues involving terrorism.

At Chicago's police and fire departments, for instance, officials say they have been ready for years to deal with anthrax and other hazardous materials.

All firefighters are equipped with "body substance isolation," wearing enough insulation to keep from inhaling anthrax spores and other hazardous substances, Assistant Fire Chief Dennis Gault said. "So your basic, run-of-the-mill firefighters are completely safe."

Some firefighters, specially trained to deal with biohazards, "wear heavier gloves and other equipment."

Tom Donegan of the Chicago Police Department said the police academy trains future officers for hazardous emergencies. "All we do is evaluate the situation and maybe isolate the scene," Donegan said.

In the Police and Fire Training Academy Program, Perry said instructors emphasize these safety precautions needed on the job and what needs to be done in perilous situations.

The students, however, can't always comprehend the true dangers of their expected careers.

"The students hear us, but when you're young..." said Perry, briefly struggling for words. "... You never think about dying."

But Perry and Peterson said the students have only become more focused in the wake of the attacks. As part of the service projects required for the program, students will be raising money to help relief efforts, Peterson said.

"Since these terrible and tragic incidents have occurred, we definitely feel that it's something we should be doing," he said. "We definitely feel the need and our young people feel the need -- an obligation to assist anyway we can. Because it could have happened here, [because] it could have happened anywhere."

"In our compassion as human beings, we have to do something."