Deputy Encourages Kids to Stay in School

I think as we grow up and move along life's journey everyone of us at some time or another either fantasizes or imagines having a dinner with a law enforcement officer. Well almost everyone that is! A program established by San Bernardino Sheriff Deputy Frank Navarro Jr. provides that experience to grade school students. The program called “Dine with Deputy Program” was initiated by Navarro when he was a resource officer in the City of Yucaipa. “I introduced the program to help interface law enforcement with students in the grade schools to encourage them to stay in school and be in class everyday," Navarro said. "Through their attendance, each of them was able to increase their grade point averages and socialize with their peers in a positive manner." He eventually added the program to Grand Terrace schools when his assignment changed. “Each month I would have lunch with those kids who had perfect attendance for the month both boys and girls in each of the six grades," Navarro said. "But time marches on and I was moved back to headquarters where I was selected to patrol Grand Terrace in 2015. Once there I started the same Yucaipa program in Grand Terrace Elementary and Terrace View Elementary grade schools. As at Yucaipa, I instituted the monthly lunch for those students who had perfect attendance. The only difference is that a good friend of mine and my father, Gary Grossich, owner of Nickelodeon Pizza in Colton, provided pizza for all of the perfect attendance students.” At the end of this past school year for both of the schools, Navarro took his program to a higher level for the students by taking all of the perfect attendance students to a Sixty-Sixers Single A baseball game and providing food and drink for each one of them. The 24 Grand Terrace Elementary students and the 27 Terrace View students did not know they were going to a baseball game because of their perfect attendance in school all year long. The sheriff deputy Union “SEBA” funded the entire evening for the kids. They all had a blast. Navarro has found the right formula to keep kids in school.