Sioux Center Chamber of Commerce members heard during the July 9 meeting from former students about their experiences under the Sioux Center High School Center for Advanced Professional Students program and how it has benefited them.
According to CAPS program instructor Jill Harskamp, the program has grown tremendously since it started during the 2021-22 school year, with 75 students lined up to take the program this fall. CAPS is a nontraditional approach to learning that focuses on giving students real working experience with partners in the community, such as businesses, nonprofits and local government. Through these partnerships, students work on projects for their partners and gain real-world work experience.
“Students fast-forward into their future and are fully immersed in a professional culture solving real-world problems using industry standard tools and are mentored by actual employers, all while receiving high school and college credit. That all happens here in Sioux Center with our program,” Harskamp said. “What I love about CAPS the most is that it’s an example of how business, community and public education can partner to produce personalized learning experiences that educate the workforce of tomorrow.”
At Sioux Center High School, this program has grown to add different career paths to broaden the scope of experiences students can gain during their time with CAPS.
“The last two years, I did CAPS Education where students get to actually be in classrooms and they earn credit toward the beginning of their education degree. This fall, we’re partnering with Sioux Center Health and Promise Community Health and we’re going to start CAPS Medical,” Harskamp said.
The three former CAPS students present for the chamber meeting were 2024 graduate Freddie Hernandez who manages Vero’s Mexican Bites, 2025 graduate Kinley Kamerman who will attend Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon in the fall and 2022 graduate Jori Harskamp who is pursuing a nursing degree at Northwestern College in Orange City.
For his part, Hernandez was part of a group of students that worked with the city of Sioux Center to look into new ideas for improved downtown parking, a task that had him working with city development director Dennis Dokter.
He said the program helped him learn how to network and communicate effectively as he worked with fellow students and business partners.
“It helped me narrow down exactly what it was I wanted to go pursue with my career. It helped me have the tunnel vision to filter out the other options I was contemplating doing,” Hernandez said.
Kamerman’s group aided Kroese & Kroese create a parade float for their project.
“We got to be creative as we tried to meet their needs. We weren’t given a lot of specific expectations, so we came up with an idea,” she said. “We partnered with a Sioux Center business who built the whole thing, and they made their debut in the Sioux Center homecoming parade this year.”
Through their work, she learned how to adjust to client needs and working out how to achieve a vision.
Another aspect of her time with CAPS that she appreciated were the career interviews, when students get to meet with a professional and learn firsthand what their job looks like.
“One of my career interviews I met with, she took the exact same education path I’m going on. It was reassuring that she liked it and it was exactly what she expected. That was nice to hear that from someone who did the exact same thing as me,” Kamerman said.
For Jori and her group, there were two projects to tackle, putting together advertising and marketing materials for Reflections Prom & Bridal’s Tux In event at Sioux Center High School, followed by procuring brochures for All Kids Can to use at such events as their family fun night at the All Seasons Center.
“It was definitely out of my comfort zone because it was a lot of graphic design stuff, advertising. I already knew I wanted to study nursing, so it was something out of my comfort zone, but I felt I grew and learned a lot from it. I really enjoyed it,” Jori said.
As someone who has frequently been a partner with CAPS, city parks director Lee Van Meeteren spoke about his experiences with the program in the last few years.
He has had CAPS students help his department out by looking into and reporting back on digital touchscreen boards that could be added into the parks to provide all kinds of information for visitors, and in the last year, he had CAPS students look into adding pickleball courts, including information on materials and other options.
He said the students have provided him with phenomenal information and work.
“I would encourage anybody to partner on one of these projects with them. If anything, it gives them good experience. On my side, it really made me think of all the little details,” Van Meeteren said.
In that way, the CAPS program is truly a win-win for the students, their real-world partners and the wider community, Harskamp said. She encouraged more businesses and organizations to partner with CAPS by reaching out to her, adding that it’s important not to underestimate what these students are capable of.
“Sometimes our perception of a high school kid is not accurate. They are able to do so much more than we often give them credit for,” she said. “At the same time, they aren’t professionals and so they’ll need support and some help. It’s been fun to watch them rise to the occasion and our businesses support them in doing so.”
The original article published by Sioux Center News can be found here.
