Westside Community Schools received the Youth Career Connect Grant from the US Departments of Labor and Education in April of 2014. Westside was given a 2.6 million dollars to build a program of study that culminates in an authentic work experience senior year. The center for advanced professional studies, or CAPS program is being implemented at school. Melissa Hansen, Westside’s career education readiness and transitions program director, has been the leader of the new CAPS program here.

The program starts with taking foundational classes during freshman and sophomore year. Then, in your junior year, a student has the choice to transition into the work experience by doing dual enrollment, becoming a certified nursing assistant (CNA) or staying on campus and doing more foundational work such as the advanced health sciences or sports medicine. Senior year, students get off campus for a real-life experience. Each day, students spend two and a half hours either in the morning or the afternoon off campus doing dual enrollment, working at a hospital, doing internships, or participating in other courses. The senior courses are project-based rather than a direct delivery of content to students.

The first group of students in the CAPS program are already in their foundation years of study. All the students in the program right now are at oldest juniors. Next year will be the first year there are seniors in the final stage of the authentic learning experience provided by the CAPS program.

The main goal of the CAPS program is to get students ready to enter the workforce. Feedback from employers say that they want to see students ready to be able to get a project and initiate the project themselves in order to get it done, rather than being told the step by step process of how the project should be done.

CAPS will give students an opportunity to explore their interests and get an idea of what they want to do in the future for a career. Not only will this new program allow students to explore their interests but provide individualized attention from mentors, job shadows, internships and much more.

The Westside CAPS program was modeled after the blue valley school system located in Kansas City. Westside is its their program unique by focusing on making the program more project-based and letting the teachers facilitate rather than lecture to provide the real world settings for students.

Westside has modular scheduling allowing students to have free time. This free time needs to be managed well in order to be successful. There is also a level of responsibility needed to have free time during school. These skills transfer over well when entering the CAPS program. The program them builds and improves these skills.

“My goal is to help all students understand the connection between what they’re learning in the classroom and how its relevant outside the classroom. This has always been a passion of mine to promote career [education] and readiness. I know that students are being taught the skills they need but we are not taking them in depth enough. So this will hopefully bridge that gap and get them the skills they need” Hansen said.

Talk to your counselor if you are interested in being a part of the CAPS program or want more information.