Louisiana State Police Training Academy Gains Greater Insight Into Training And Centralizes Data With Acadis

The Challenge

The Louisiana State Police is headquartered Baton Rouge and its nearly 1,000 sworn personnel are organized into nine troops spread across the state. Its Training Academy provides basic training for cadets as well as annual in-service training for troopers, including quarterly firearms training.

For each basic training class, around 50 cadets attend a 1,100-hour, in-person program spanning 24 weeks. According to the Training Operations Supervisor, a Lieutenant, the goal is to run two classes and train approximately 100 to 150 cadets a year.

LSP has two campuses—one at its headquarters and another large training facility that includes the agency’s shoot house, bomb range, driving track, and more.

Before implementing the Acadis® Readiness Suite, operating two training locations and the wide geographic distribution of the officers across the state created inconsistencies in their training and training data.

Additionally, the academy relied on a 25-year-old software system—in conjunction with supplemental spreadsheets and Word documents—to support their training program. The software and administrative processes had evolved over many years, resulting in multiple databases and a siloed data environment. In some circumstances, training data was also recorded manually on paper, adding additional complexity when trying to compile data or pull information for public records requests.

The Choice

In 2021, continuing with their previous software became impossible as LSP’s primary system reached end-of-life and was no longer supported by the technology vendor. At the same time, leaders and external stakeholders were increasingly asking for training data that was impossible to access through their current processes.

To be able to answer those questions and turn raw training data into actionable insights, LSP needed a software platform that could help them:

• Report on the performance of students and curriculum
• Provide benchmarks and ongoing tracking of metrics
• Standardize tracking and reporting across both training locations
• Establish and measure learning objectives

Armed with this information, the academy would be able to focus on evolving and improving training processes, instead of sifting through multiple databases and filing cabinets for insights.

After being introduced to Acadis, LSP determined it would meet their current needs and more. They adopted the entire product suite and began the implementation process in August 2021, focusing on scheduling, training, testing, and building personnel records for their cadet training program.

The Change

Through Acadis, the Louisiana State Police has:

• Standardized and centralized training data into one system, drastically reducing the need for manual, paper-based processes.
• Simplified scheduling cadet classes with features that allow staff to schedule in bulk, include the assigned instructors and relevant class equipment, eliminate conflicts or errors, and manage it all through one system.
• Centralized all data related to personnel records within Acadis, from hire-to-retire, making it much easier to access information about individual troopers.
• Implemented the FTO module, eliminating additional paper-based processes in favor of a digital version of weekly evaluations.
• Empowered troopers to take their education into their own hands by offering functionality to self-register for classes and submit any third-party training they have completed via the Acadis portal.
• Utilized Acadis’ secure testing features, including anti-cheat functionality like browser lockdowns, to ensure academic integrity.

While there is always more work to be done to refine processes, the implementation of Acadis has been a major stepping stone to success for the Louisiana State Police.

“We do create paper, obviously. But it’s all entered into Acadis and that becomes the single source of truth for their training record. The cadets we have today will never have a paper file in a filing cabinet somewhere,” the Lt. said. “Our goal is to get rid of all our filing cabinets. Someday there’s going to be a big sale on Louisiana State Police filing cabinets.”

As a large agency with greater resources than smaller agencies, LSP can conduct its in-service training in person as well, the Lt. said.

“This year, we’re doing 3 full 8-hour days of in-person training, but a small agency doesn’t have the resources or the facilities to pull that off. They also don’t have the personnel to be able to pull officers out of the field,” he said. “Those smaller agencies are able to get some of those hours through online training.”

Certain training, such as firearms qualification, will always need to be done in person. However, that in-person training and performance documentation can still be tracked and managed digitally through a police training management system, such as Acadis.

“It’s great that Acadis gives us the ability to track that training, give those certifications, make sure people know when they’re due for training and find out what training is available,” he said. “It really works out well for us.”

Through the Acadis portal, troopers are also able to self-register for certain upcoming training opportunities and submit any training they complete through outside entities. This functionality has allowed troopers to become more self-sufficient and has reduced the burden on training staff.