Conducting IPMBA Courses During a Pandemic

By Rossman J. Shaffer, PCI #1914
Temple University (PA) Police Department

While millions of Americans are rightfully quarantined or confined to their homes due to the dangers of COVID-19, law enforcement agencies have been confronted with another problem.  It has been increasingly difficult to maintain consistent training for police officers while also adhering to CDC guidelines. The dangers of COVID-19 (and other infectious diseases) may be present for quite some time, but law enforcement agencies need to continue to train their personnel safely despite the ongoing pandemic.

The Temple University Police Department confronted this very situation while trying to organize an IPMBA Police Cyclist Course to train 11 police officers.  The course requires in-classroom lectures and a significant amount of outdoor, on-bike instruction.

First and foremost, all officers and instructors were to adhere to a strict face mask policy that required everyone to wear some sort of protective mask at all times.  To mitigate the risk to officers taking the course, Temple Police Department opted to cut the class in half in order to make each class as small as possible.  The result was one class of five officers with one instructor and another class of six officers with one instructor.  Normally, we would have had one class with multiple instructors, as well as aides, assisting with the course.  With an on-going pandemic, however, keeping groups as small as possible is vital.

Being close together inside a classroom was a concern during the lectures and the written testing as well.  To mitigate this, a very large room was provided so that there would be more than six feet (1.82 meters) of distance between students while indoors. 

While outdoors on the bicycles, Temple provided one entire floor of an open-air parking garage that was closed to the public. This ensured that officers in training would not come into contact with the public, students, or staff during their training.

The cone courses for slow-speed bike handling were spaced out significantly to allow students plenty of room to practice on their own.  Only one student was permitted at each cone course at a time. 

The IPMBA Course also includes hours of vehicular cycling “road rides” to practice gear shifting, braking, hand signaling, navigating traffic and road features, etc.  Under normal circumstances, it would be acceptable to make multiple stops along the way, frequenting areas with lots of people and initiating conversations, but this time the road rides were designed to avoid crowded areas to ensure minimal interaction with the public while still affording the necessary cycling skill practice.

Although planning and conducting an IPMBA Course during the COVID-19 pandemic may seem daunting, a safe class can effectively be completed if the right precautions are taken.  Instructors and police department command staff can ensure a safe training environment by providing the proper venues and equipment.

In summary, here are some suggested precautions and practices for instructing an IPMBA Cyclist Course during a pandemic:

• Keep the classes as small as possible, 10 students or less, even if you have multiple instructors.  IPMBA has long recommended 5-6 for a solo instructor to maintain instructional quality, anyway. 
• Provide a large enough classroom to enable students to maintain physical distancing.
• Clean and sanitize the classroom after each day of training.
• Require all participants to adhere to a strict facemask policy and have extra personal protective equipment available for those who forget it.
• Designate an outdoor training location away from other people to prevent close human interaction.
• Strategically plan road ride routes to limit exposure to the public.
• Space out the on-bike skill stations to ensure students are not training in close proximity.

With the above precautions in place, an IPMBA Cyclist Course can be conducted safely and effectively, despite the on-going pandemic.

Rossman is a police officer with the Temple University Police Department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He completed the IPMBA Police Cyclist Course in 2015, during his rookie year.  In 2019, he completed the IPMBA Instructor Course in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Rossman holds a Master’s degree in crime analysis and utilizes bike patrols as a community policing and a crime prevention tool.  He can be reached at tue68312@temple.edu. 

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