Coach Ray, the criminology teacher, originally came to Atoka High School to be the girls' basketball coach. He wanted to make the Atoka Lady Cat basketball team great again like they were in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. He has been coaching for ten years, but prior to coaching, he got his experience from working in law enforcement. Due to his experience in law enforcement, the students in his criminology classes have a better understanding of what it would be like to pursue a career in the criminal justice system. During his criminology classes, he and the students look at components of the criminal justice system and study the elements of true crime cases. In the future, Coach Ray plans to continue to look more in-depth at the criminal justice system with his students. They will also be researching and discussing some of the more prominent serial killers in history. The end goal for his class is to assist the students in the future if they are required to do these things in college or the workforce.

     Addison Stephens stated, “my time in criminology has been interesting,” due to some of the topics that they discuss in the class. She decided to take criminology because she thought it would be interesting and there would be no class presentations, but she was wrong. They present a project every one to two weeks. Addison would like to see more documentaries regarding killers and their psychology.

     Jace Smith said that his "time in criminology has been excellent,” and that the methods which Coach Ray uses are phenomenal. He decided to take criminology because the field of study intrigued him. 

     Jude Selby told us his “time in criminology has been good,” and he considers the teacher great, the students nice, and the work pretty easy, while still being educational. He decided to take criminology to further his knowledge of the criminal justice system.

     Stormy Benjamin said that her "time in criminology is always awesome.” She has gotten to hear more opinions from her peers, which has made her feel closer to her class.  She has always been interested in the criminal justice field and was very happy to see that criminology was added as an elective. She claims that “Mr. Ray makes criminology educational without making it boring and hard.” 

     All the students interviewed recommended criminology as an elective. Many of them claimed that it was a very educational and fun class, but you must be prepared for tons of essays, presentations, and debates.