LAKEHURST – Police Officer Paul Fazio recently began teaching a 10-week program to approximately thirty 5th grade students at Fort Dix Elementary School.
This upcoming school year, Officer Fazio will also teach the L.E.A.D. (Law Enforcement Against Drugs & Violence) program to students in the 4th grade at Endeavour Elementary School as well.
L.E.A.D. is a nationwide nonprofit that works with communities to help students understand the dangers of drugs and violence.
Officer Fazio was trained by L.E.A.D. to teach the organization’s proven-effective curriculum, teaching school children about the dangers of drugs and violence and helping them to gain skills surrounding effective communication and conflict resolution, among other talents, over the course of 10 weeks.
L.E.A.D. Chief Executive Officer Nick DeMauro said, “we’re pleased that Officer Fazio is part of our L.E.A.D. family. Officer Fazio is helping us to continue achieving our goal of bridging the gap between police officers and communities as he helps the kids to understand why avoiding drugs and violence is vital and teaches them how to set goals, manage their emotions and make wise decisions.”
L.E.A.D. is celebrating a decade of success providing services “On the Street” and “In The Classroom” as it brings law enforcement and communities closer together.
The “In the Classroom” program is taught by 6,000 trained instructors in 46 states, who are serving more than 500,000 students in 2,500 school systems.
DeMauro noted that the program has a proven effective, law enforcement-focused anti-drug, anti-violence curriculum for K–12 students in the nation. The L.E.A.D. curriculum is taught over the course of 10 weeks to educate youth on how they can make smart decisions without the involvement of drugs or violence.
Officer Fazio said L.E.A.D. is beneficial to the students at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, says as it teaches them how to make the best choices possible.
“Although there’s always a chance that they may have to go to other bases or locations with their parents still being in the armed forces, the good decision-making skills that they gained from the L.E.A.D. program will remain a constant in the children’s lives,” Fazio added.
The officer said he appreciates how well-designed and organized the L.E.A.D. curriculum is. “The scripted lessons and games are so time constructed that the student’s attention is held throughout the entire lesson, making it easier to put all our focus into delivering the message, rather than fighting to keep the students following along,”
“The curriculum is so comprehensible that we can have one of the other instructors step in from week to week and fill the role if needed. Just starting with the implementation of L.E.A.D. in the base community could truly make a difference worldwide,” the officer added.
“One of the largest disconnects we have as a base and police department is that the families don’t get to know us very well since they move around so much. They only see us as the authoritarians when someone does something wrong,” Fazio said.
He added, “this is what we hope to change most with our community-policing initiatives and the L.E.A.D. program. By teaching L.E.A.D., we have the ability to impact families and military families that could potentially travel across the world with our military forces, propelling the beliefs of the program and being able to reach many more youth than from just a regular small town.”
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