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June 16, 2025
FOND DU LAC – Moraine Park Technical College (MPTC) and Fond du Lac County have officially entered into a Memorandum of Understanding agreement, which allows MPTC to offer a correctional officer training academy.
Chris Schatz, dean of Health and Human Services at MPTC, said the program – known as the Jail Officer Academy – is a Department of Justice (DOJ)-accredited 200-hour program offered to current Fond du Lac County and surrounding county employees to gain certification as a correctional officer.
In the State of Wisconsin, he said individuals must be DOJ-certified to work in a county jail.
“Currently, officers are sent to training classes as they become available throughout the state, resulting in increased costs to the county,” Schatz said. “Often, statewide academies fill up fast, causing significant wait times for officers waiting to train.”
Schatz said the newly developed jail academy partnership will fulfill the certification requirements while saving the county time and resources – allowing them to train their officers faster and more affordably.
“There is a bottleneck in the state because there are only so many training facilities, yet there are 72 counties that need their officers trained,” he said. “By training them locally, the cost is reduced. This will also significantly reduce wait time.”
Additionally, Schatz said, the jail academy will utilize classroom and training space at the former University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh’s (UWO) Fond du Lac Campus Art Building, now renamed the Public Safety Training Center, located within the newly created Fond du Lac County Campus (FCC).
“Once the (UWO Fond du Lac Campus) closed, that facility reverted back to county-owned property,” he said. “The county owns it, hence the Memorandum of Understanding. We just wanted to get some things on paper as to who’s doing what and what the rules of engagement are, so to speak, with this partnership.”
As part of the partnership, Schatz said Fond du Lac County is providing the learning spaces, and MPTC will provide the curriculum and instructors.
“Moraine Park’s criminal justice instructor, Jeff Gruss, will lead the program as the academy director,” he said. “The college will utilize various instructors to teach the different modules and curriculum throughout the academy.”
MPTC President Bonnie Baerwald said the program and partnership are being met with “much excitement and optimism.”
“Not only are we able to help Fond du Lac County fill their training needs locally, and with Moraine Park’s instructional experts, but together, we will help cut training costs and utilize currently vacant learning spaces once occupied by UWO Fond du Lac,” she said.
Fond du Lac County Executive Sam Kaufman said the creation of the Public Safety Training Center within the FCC and this new partnership with MPTC represent a continuation of county support for its law enforcement agencies within Fond du Lac County.
“We are very fortunate to have MPTC within our community, and I look forward to the first of many opportunities to create partnerships with MPTC,” he said.
Schatz said the first cohort of 18 students will begin training at the jail academy this fall.
“The college and Fond du Lac County plan to offer one academy each year as a starting point,” he said. “County employees who complete the academy will earn a certificate through the DOJ for completing the program.”
Based on demand, Schatz said more trainings might be offered in the future.
“We’ll definitely do one a year,” he said. “With this first one, we’re going to see how it goes, and if the timing works – because we want to be conducive to the jail schedules – we’ll consider doing future programs. We’re really trying to fill the gap on those training needs.”
Schatz said this specific jail academy at FCC is for sponsored students – those who are already employed by their county jails.
“The students (in our jail academy) are already employed by their county jails, but they haven’t been able to get into a training academy yet,” he said. “They have one year to get certified after employment or the county has to apply for an extension.”
Schatz said some programs offer “pre-service training.”
“Pre-service training might be you or me off the street who aren’t currently employed by a county jail,” he said. “We could sign up for a pre-service training academy without having a job yet, get certified and then become employed anywhere in the state. With our program, we’re not doing that. We want to meet the needs of our local jails first.”
A year in the making
About a year ago, Schatz said Kaufman reached out to MPTC to gauge interest in possibly utilizing space at the county-owned facility.
“He reached out because there’s a lot of great space to offer some public safety training in collaboration with each other,” he said. “From there, we talked about a law enforcement academy, but we eventually settled on the jail academy.”
Even before serious talks about a jail academy began last summer, Schatz said MPTC was looking to expand its programs.
“We’ve been around for more than 100 years,” he said. “We passed our first-ever college referendum in 2022, which basically funded four programs. That has allowed us to do some projects, one of which is our health and human services remodel and expansion. That will be kicking off this fall with construction.”
Schatz said the health and human services remodel “got the wheels turning” on what other expanded programming the college could offer.
“How do we partner with our local agencies and entities, and then at the same time, Sam came into the picture and said, ‘Hey, how do we partner? How can we work together?’” he said. “It made sense to utilize their space and create that partnership and collaborate that way.”
Schatz said other area technical colleges – NWTC, FVTC, etc. – also have jail academies.
“Other technical colleges have the same version, but we wanted to utilize that space and keep the training local,” he said. “In the downstairs space of the former arts building, the county is going to conduct some public safety trainings, while the jail academy will be upstairs.”
Schatz said the county did a “really great job” renovating the jail academy space.
“They put a lot of time and effort into renovating the classroom/lab spaces,” he said. “There are going to be mock jail cells, a booking area and a self-defense training area.”
Schatz said the Fond du Lac Sheriff’s Department has been great to work with, as was Kaufman.
“Chris Dobyns, patrol lieutenant at the Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office, and Lieutenant Tyler Broderick, the assistant jail administrator, have been great to collaborate with and work with,” he said. “They’ve taught us what we need, what the students need, getting the jail cells outfitted and making sure that space is top notch so we can hold a great academy to start.”
