MOSO CAPS program back on Joplin School Board table
Apr. 18—More than a year after it was rejected, the Joplin Board of Education is reconsidering offering high school students a chance to study at Missouri Southern State University under an advanced placement studies program.
After a convoluted and contentious series of votes by two school boards, Joplin Superintendent Kerry Sachetta said he plans to talk to Missouri Southern about the district participating in the MOSO CAPS program and bring a proposal back to the board as soon as possible.
"I think also we're going to take a look at the interest of the students in the high school and do our due diligence there," Sachetta said. "Then we'll bring back a proposal to the board and let them act on it."
CAPS stands for the Center for Advanced Professional Studies, a national model for collaboration among local school districts, higher education and industry. It offers high school students, typically juniors and seniors, the opportunity to work toward a professional goal in local industry.
Missouri Southern started a CAPS program last year in cooperation with the school districts in Carl Junction and Webb City. Joplin was offered a chance to participate with 59 positions reserved for Joplin students, but the board rejected the proposal twice on the basis of cost.
Board members, including some who voted in favor of it Tuesday night, balked at the idea that the district would have to pay full price, $2,498 per student in 2021, for all 59 spots regardless of whether 59 students from Joplin actually decided to participate in the program.
The measure was rejected by 4-3 votes in December 2021 and again in January 2022 after supporters obtained a private donation that would have covered the cost of any unfilled seats allotted to Joplin.
Tuesday's vote was complicated by the reorganization of the Joplin Board of Education after the April 4 election.
Three new members were scheduled to be seated at this meeting, so some members of the old board proposed reconsidering the CAPS program in the part of the meeting before the reorganization.
Board member Don Greenlee started the meeting with a motion to remove reconsideration of the MOSO CAPS program from the agenda, citing the lack of a negotiated memorandum of understanding in the proposal as his reason to object to it.
After a discussion, that motion failed by a 4-3 vote, but then all seven board members voted in favor of the measure before the old board gave way to the new board.
Then at the end of the meeting, Greenlee moved to reconsider the MOSO CAPS program, saying the new board deserved a chance to weigh in on the issue.
Board member John Hird spoke against the motion to reconsider, saying the previous board's vote was to have Sachetta talk to Missouri Southern and the new board would get a chance to weigh in when Sachetta brought Southern's proposal back.
Board members voted 5-2 to reconsider the action, then voted 5-2 again to table the MOSO CAPS proposal and instruct Sachetta to speak to the university as quickly as possible and also talk to students at the high school to find out if they were still interested in the program.
The motion to table left open the possibility of holding a special session if Sachetta can gather all the information needed before the board's regular May meeting.
"I think there's some information we can get to the board members so they have all the information they need," Sachetta said. "And that's going to be what's on the agreement itself and then also to hopefully get a little bit of interest level from the students so we can gauge that there are some students that are still interested."
