By Nate Jendrick, Ph.D.
It happens all too often: Throughout a year of in-service training, officers attend firearms, defensive tactics, legal updates, reality-based training and other continuing education blocks, yet each feels as though it exists in isolation.
During a defensive tactics class, an officer may hear one set of terminology for use-of-force decision-making. Weeks later, a firearms instructor might teach the same concept but with different words, different acronyms or a slightly different emphasis. Neither instructor is wrong, and both are trying to prepare officers for the reality of the street. Yet they have inadvertently created two mental models that will collide in the same real-world moment.
And when officers are on the street, there’s no time to stop and think about which version applies.
The problem isn’t that instructors are teaching different subjects; it’s that the training calendar was built as a schedule instead of a learning plan.
This happens more often than many agencies realize, and it isn’t a training failure so much as a planning failure. Most training calendars are built around schedules, but the best ones are built around learning. While it is understandably difficult for agencies to get instructors together to build an entire training calendar at once, it is extremely valuable to make it happen.
Fortunately, the fix doesn’t require a bigger budget or a new curriculum. It just requires instructors to sit down, or even collaborate electronically, before the calendar is finalized. By asking a short list of questions, instructors can ensure officers receive standardized tactics and terminology that allow them to learn more quickly and retain more information.
Experienced trainers could undoubtedly add to this list, but here are five starter questions to ask when entering the planning conversation:
1. What operational themes should carry through the entire year?
Before assigning dates, identify two or three themes the agency wants reinforced across every discipline. It could be de-escalation, articulation of reasonable suspicion or decision-making under time pressure. Once those themes are set, ask each instructor how their block already reinforces them and where it could do more.
A firearms instructor and a defensive tactics instructor teaching toward the same decision-making theme produce something a single excellent instructor working alone cannot: repetition across contexts, which is how skills become durable under stress.
2. What recent calls have exposed a gap that crosses disciplines?
Many agencies already review use-of-force incidents, complaints or close calls for lessons learned. The goal isn’t to criticize the officers involved, but to ensure the next officer is better prepared.
The question instructor cadres often overlook is whether the lesson belongs to one discipline or several. A takedown that goes sideways may appear to be a defensive tactics problem on the surface, but the root cause may involve communication, decision-making or legal authority. Reviewing recent incidents as a cadre will reveal training gaps that no single instructor is likely to identify alone.
3. Are we using the same terminology?
Picture a scenario where one instructor tells an officer to “create distance.” Another later says, “manage the gap.” A third tells the officer to “put time between” themselves and the suspect. Are those three different tactics or three ways of describing the same one?
This is the simplest question on the list and the easiest to overlook. Compare the core vocabulary each instructor uses to describe decision-making, force options and de-escalation. It’s common to find multiple instructors teaching the same concept under different names.
Standardizing terminology costs nothing yet pays dividends every time an officer must explain their actions, whether in a report, an interview or court. Consistent language improves recall under stress and helps officers articulate their decisions, whether on the street or on the stand.
4. Where can one instructor’s block set up another’s?
Once themes and terminology are aligned, look at the calendar itself. How can the training blocks build on one another?
If a legal update covers use-of-force reasonableness, a defensive tactics block later can explicitly reference it instead of starting from zero. Firearms training can then use the same terms and framework already practiced.
None of this requires instructors to teach outside their discipline. It simply requires them to know what came before, what comes next and how their area of expertise fits into the overall training program.
Agencies rightly rely on instructors as subject matter experts, but too often only tell them when they will teach, not what role that instruction should play in the year’s training objectives. Without that guidance, continuity is left to chance.
5. What doesn’t belong anymore?
Training calendars tend to grow rather than evolve. Every year brings another required course, update, rollout or initiative. Without deliberate review, outdated exercises and obsolete terminology can remain in the mix.
Before finalizing the calendar, instructor cadres should ask what can be removed, combined or modernized to create more time for meaningful reinforcement. Every hour spent teaching outdated concepts is an hour that can’t be spent reinforcing the operational philosophy the agency wants officers to carry into the field.
A cohesive instructor cadre isn’t just responsible for adding new material; it’s also responsible for retiring what no longer serves the mission.
Planning in motion
None of this requires a separate meeting series or a new committee. It only requires making sure the people who plan the training calendar are working with the instructors delivering it. In fact, time can be saved by sending these questions to trainers and having them make notes before the planning session.
A simple planning agenda might look like this:
A simple training planning agenda
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1
Set the themes
Agency administrators identify themes for the year's training calendar, ideally after considering recent critical incidents.
If possible, seek feedback from field trainers and the prosecutor's office about issues they have seen that could be addressed through upcoming training.
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2
Roundtable the themes
How does each discipline's curriculum currently reinforce those themes?
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3
Review recent incidents
Determine whether there are recent in-house calls, with video or body-worn camera footage if possible, that could be used in training.
Officers are more likely to embrace training when they see that it directly applies to incidents involving their peers.
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4
Check terminology
Have instructors work together to ensure they use the same terms for the same tactics. Role-play them, mock them up, draw them out and solidify what will be used.
What words are being used to identify core concepts, and what exactly do those words mean?
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5
Sequence the training
Which blocks should come first, and which build better into others?
A legal update, for instance, may be better suited to come before reality-based training in which officers are tested on legal authority and critical decision-making.
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6
Create a documentation plan
How will the agency record that training was delivered as an integrated system and set standards officers must meet to demonstrate they learned what was intended?
There are many ways to do this, and it helps when the standard is consistent across training blocks.
Agencies that build their calendars around these questions can get more out of the same training hours while delivering a better product. More importantly, sending officers into the field with one consistent operational philosophy allows for clearer, quicker reactions, better communication and enhanced decision-making.
An agency’s training calendar shouldn’t simply organize instruction. It should organize how officers learn, think and perform their craft.
About the author
Nate Jendrick, Ph.D., is a former K9 handler and current multidisciplinary instructor and patrol sergeant in Washington state. He is the author of numerous nonfiction books and holds a Master of Public Administration and a Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice Leadership.
