Location
Grade Levels
- 9-12
Learning Models
- Project-Based Learning
- Real World Learning
Governance
Grades Served: 9-12
About
(CAPS), south of Kansas City, takes an innovative business-partnership approach to giving its students professional and business skills that help them succeed in a range of industries. A national affiliate program, CAPS Network, has grown to about 75 school districts.
The Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS), located in Overland Park, Kansas, is a nationally recognized program that offers high school juniors and seniors immersive, profession-based learning experiences. Established in 2009, CAPS represents a collaboration between education, business, and the community, providing students with opportunities to engage in real-world projects, utilize industry-standard tools, and receive mentorship from professionals, all while earning high school and college credit.
Program Structure and Strands
CAPS offers various strands, each focusing on different professional fields:
- Bioscience: Students explore the intersection of biology and technology through hands-on activities and projects.
- Business, Technology, and Media: This strand immerses students in professional environments where technology is utilized to design products and solve business problems.
- Engineering: Modeled after cutting-edge engineering schools, this strand is inspired by Project Lead the Way and endorsed by business partners and post-secondary institutions.
- Medicine & Healthcare: Students explore a variety of healthcare career fields through coursework, shadowing opportunities, projects, and certifications.
- Teacher Education & Law: This strand offers an early taste of careers in law, public safety, or education.
- Foods & Entrepreneurship: Students follow a passionate pursuit from imagination to innovation in the culinary and entrepreneurial fields.
Each strand is designed to provide students with profession-based learning, allowing them to deeply explore areas of interest through inquiry-based methods.
Guiding Principles
CAPS operates under five key guiding principles:
- Profession-based Learning: Instructors develop real-world, project-based learning strategies through collaborations with business and community partners, enhancing the learning experience and preparing students for college and career.
- Responsiveness: CAPS supports high-skill, high-demand careers through ongoing innovation in curriculum development, programs, and services based on local business and community needs.
- Self-Discovery and Exploration: Students realize their strengths and passions by exploring and experiencing potential professions, allowing them to make informed decisions about their future while learning to exhibit leadership.
- Professional Skills Development: Unique experiences allow students to cultivate transformative professional skills such as understanding expectations, time management, and other essential business values, providing a competitive advantage in their post-secondary education and professional careers.
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: Instructors create an environment where creative thinking and problem-solving are encouraged, fostering an innovative culture key to entrepreneurial learning and design thinking.
Community and Business Partnerships
CAPS establishes and nurtures relationships with business partners that are mutually beneficial, sustainable, coordinated, and multi-faceted. Partners help shape curriculum, provide projects, support professional development, invest in equipment and supplies, and offer job shadow opportunities, speakers, mentors, and internships.
CAPS Network
The success of the Blue Valley CAPS program has led to the development of the CAPS Network, which includes numerous school districts across the country adopting the CAPS model to provide profession-based learning experiences to students.