The Waterloo Police Department and Waterloo Community Schools are partnering in a program that’ll be taught in the middle schools. Police chief Tom Jennings says “W-P-D and Me” will bring police officers into the classroom to talk about the all elements of the department, such as the patrol division crime lab and crime scene investigators.

Jennings says it gives the kids a view of the police department beyond someone who makes an arrest. He says it expands it and allows the kids to see the total department and answer questions about why they make traffic stops, why it takes time to respond when a call is made, and what they can and cannot do.

Waterloo superintendent De Witt Jones says this is more than just a life skills course. He says it takes it farther than the C-S-I program on t-v and puts it in a real world situation. Jennings says this expands on the work done by the drug education and school resource officers. He says it’s a step beyond both of those programs, and calls it “the next generation of interaction with the schools and the community.” The program begins next Tuesday.