HIGH SCHOOL NOTEBOOK

By STEVE HENSON

Dec. 3, 1999 12 AM PT

As Reseda football coach, Joel Schaeffer has the whistle.

As coordinator of the school’s police academy program, he teaches 70 students to earn the badge.

In its second year at Reseda, the magnet program is designed to prepare students for careers in law enforcement. Besides Schaeffer, a L.A. Police Dept. officer works with the students full-time.

“It’s a very popular program,” Schaeffer said. “There are fourth and fifth graders already applying for it. It teaches discipline and organization, and students get a lot of hands-on tutoring.”

High School Sports

Steve Henson

Steve Henson is a reporter with the Fast Break sports team at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as an assistant editor and reporter in the Sports department. Henson was a leader in digital-only newsrooms from 2007-19 as a senior editor and columnist at Yahoo Sports and as senior editor at the USA Today Sports Media Group. This is his second stint at The Times, having covered the Dodgers and UCLA as well as doing enterprise, investigative and features writing from 1985-2007. Henson was awarded first place in sports features in 2021 by the L.A. Press Club and has been honored several times by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and also by the California News Publishers Assn., the Football Writers Assn. of America and U.S. Basketball Writers Assn.

HIGH SCHOOL NOTEBOOK

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