SPS works to revamp, revitalize GOCAPS, its hands-on career exploration program

A Springfield-based program that provides hands-on career exploration for high school students embedded in local businesses will undergo a sort of reboot this fall.

The Greater Ozarks Centers for Advanced Professional Studies — known as GOCAPS — was launched by Springfield Public Schools in August 2015. Patterned after similar programs in Missouri, including one in the Kansas City area, it was designed to be a regional consortium.

"There is a big push at the state level for us to be getting kids college and career ready," said Dana Hubbard, the director of work-based learning and student experiences at SPS. "This is part of that."

In the years that followed, GOCAPS served students in as many as a dozen partnering districts in the half-day program and offered up to seven career strands.

"We were absolutely ambitious when we started," said Karen Kunkel, administrative coordinator for GOCAPS.

The participation, scope and regional footprint of GOCAPS started to change prior to the pandemic, which only added to the challenges.

Enrollment fluctuated based on interest and transportation, area districts created their own affiliated programs, and GOCAPS students sometimes struggled to fit the program into their class schedules and extracurricular activities.

Partially in response to all that, GOCAPS will evolve with the 2023-24 school year.

The Springfield district, which has been the fiscal agent during the regional hub approach, is bringing the program in house.

Starting this fall, GOCAPS will be listed among the district's "choice" programs and while its regional presence will be less formal, students from area districts will still be eligible to enroll.

Kunkel said that in the former consortium model, partner districts were expected to send a specific number of students to the program annually. The sending district will still pay tuition for each student who attends but they will not be on the hook to fill a specific number of seats.

"We are no longer restricted just to those school districts in the consortium. It's open to anybody, really, in the area who is wanting to participate," she said. "They are no longer tied to sending X amount of students. They can send as many as they would like."

The number of open seats in the program will remain steady at 150 this fall. There are three career stands available: medicine and health care, business and entrepreneurship, and engineering and manufacturing.

Springfield high schools typically take 80 seats. The rest are primarily filled by students from Nixa, Ozark, Republic, Logan-Rogersville and Marshfield.

"We are probably looking at four or five schools sending but once we get this message out, we're hoping that a lot (more) will engage," Hubbard said.

She said GOCAPS will reach out to high schools within a 30-minute drive.

High school juniors and seniors attend the program for 2-1/2 hours a day, Monday through Friday, during a school year. They can earn high school and college credit, interact with business and community members and complete a personalized capstone project.

Hallmarks of the program include real-world, project-based learning; access to innovative curriculum; cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset; exploration of potential professions; and development of professional skills.

"We have students once they leave GOCAPS their goal is to enter the workforce full-time right after high school so let's get them connected with a business where they understand the product or service that they offer," said Kunkel. "They understand the company culture and can see themselves working there."

Hubbard said GOCAPS is an option for high school students, whether they plan to go to college right away or not.

"There are a lot of great-paying jobs kids can go into as long as they know they exist. We can connect them, build that bridge before they leave high school," Hubbard said. "These companies will snag them up, will train them and, in some cases, even pay for tuition reimbursement down the road."

Kunkel works for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and said the business community has a vested interest in developing and retaining employees.

"We are wanting to create a talent pipeline for our regional employers and this is the best way that we know of to create an awareness of those local opportunities," she said. "A lot of time students, and by extension their families, think they have to leave our region in order to have the career that they want when a lot of those careers are, in fact, here."

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Since 2015, GOCAPS has amassed a lengthy list of businesses, employers, and community groups that work with the program. They serve as guest speakers and offer job shadowing, guided workplace tours and "real world" problems that need to be solved.

"We ask them to present those to our students and let them take a shot at trying to solve those problems," Kunkel said. "It is really amazing to see what ideas students can come up with when they don't know the barriers ... Students can kind of see past that and ask a lot of questions and come up with innovative solutions."

Hubbard said post-pandemic, high school students are "craving real and authentic" experiences that will prepare them for the next step.

"What we are talking about is exactly that," Hubbard said. "It is solving problems that are real in our community and I think it just grounds kids ... It gets them connected to other people."

Claudette Riley covers education for the News-Leader. Email tips and story ideas to criley@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: SPS works to revamp, revitalize GOCAPS career exploration program