I am a public-sector entrepreneur. I must help people with my work; it is my oxygen. My personal mission statement is: “To help people make connections that help them live their dreams.” That is why I feel blessed to be the new Executive Director of the Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS).
During my short professional career, I have pursued my personal mission from a number of vantage points, including a business startup, a for-profit business, a municipal government, a state government, and a nonprofit. I have always thrived in situations where my work was fully aligned with my personal mission.
Most recently I worked at NetWork Kansas (the state center for entrepreneurship for Kansas). Every aspect of my job related to making connections for people: helping them find funding or the technical assistance they needed to fully execute their business ideas. Fortunately, structures to support entrepreneurs and small business owners abound and I was able to refer entrepreneurs to many of the countless resource providers working with this population.
Less well-developed today are connections between the business community and students, particularly in K-12 education. One reason for this: innovating education is difficult, adaptive work. State and federal regulations limit how far “outside the box” you can climb. Even if those barriers are navigated, budgetary constraints often rear their ugly head, killing creative approaches.
Despite the hurdles, some groups are able to make significant strides in this area, including CAPS. CAPS takes an innovative hands-on approach to public education. Course titles and descriptions read more like something out of college or graduate school. (Did you ever take a class titled “Molecular Medicine and Bioengineering” in high school? I did not have that option.)
Curriculum is co-created by educators and business partners in professional fields of interest, including the following CAPS strands: Accelerator; Bioscience; Business, Technology & Media; Engineering; Human Services; and Medicine & Healthcare. Students from five high schools, parochial schools, and homeschools in the Blue Valley School District (Overland Park, Kansas) engage in hands-on, real-world problem solving for half of each school day and are provided with additional engagement opportunities via mentorships and internships that supplement their learning. Student projects in the CAPS program are actual business projects. Their work does not sit in a file as static proof of mastery, it is utilized by businesses and community organizations. In one current example, engineering and technology students at CAPS are working with a professional sports franchise to develop a method for determining when seats at an event are occupied by fans.
This type of personalized learning is meaningful, real, and impactful – and the CAPS model is currently being replicated in more than ten school districts across the country.
I am blessed to be the new Executive Director of this program. Our team is currently visioning how to build CAPS as a hub for the broader community and establish CAPS as a leading network for educational innovation. It should be a fun ride!
