The Cache County School District hosted local businesses and teachers at its Industry Impact Summit Thursday, at the Cache County School District Office, an event aimed at brainstorming ways for students to broaden their interests and provide opportunities for students to gain real-world experience in local industries.
With the district’s continued expansion of its Work Based Learning and Cache Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) programs, representatives from local businesses were able to talk with teachers from many fields and provided ideas for students to gain work-experience within their companies.
The district’s Career and Technical Education Director John Anderson spoke to the group about bridging the gap between students’ aptitudes and interests in school subjects, in order to better serve the students and the work-force they will eventually enter.
Anderson also described the difference between the district’s Work-Based Learning and CAPS programs, equating the former to an internship and the latter to a more complex, advanced system, in which the students’ entire course will see them working directly with a business on a project.
CAPS teams are typically composed of three to four students, a faculty member serving as an advisor, and employees of the company who oversee the students’ work.
“One of my goals this year was to double the amount of internship opportunities for students in Cache District — which we accomplished — because I believe that kids only know what they know,” Anderson said.
Teachers, doctors and police officers are jobs Anderson feels kids know the most about, but there are so many other opportunities for students outside of those fields.
“It’s an opportunity for students to just open up their eyes to, ‘What are the possibilities,’ that’s the internship piece,” Anderson said. “But then you get this CAPS experience — now they’re getting hands-on. Now they’re getting to take these projects and actually work with it and decide ‘Hey, do I really like this?”
Using a service called YouScience, the district conducted an analysis of students’ aptitudes and interest levels in 16 different fields.
Green Canyon High School Woodshop/CTE/Robotics teacher Jared Storrs said the value of the aptitude test has already shown up.
“The military — if you take an aptitude test — the military tells you what you’re going to do,” Storrs said. “With us, we don’t have that control, but it gives kids an opportunity to be able to kind of, ‘Oh, I am interested in this…’”
Some fields, such as education and training, were in students’ top three interests, but less than half of those students had education and training in their top three fields for aptitude.
Conversely, information technology had many students with high aptitude, but a relatively miniscule number of students with high interest in the field.
Local businesses coming to the table with the district will be instrumental in closing these gaps, according to Anderson, who cited scholarships, internships, and teaching both at their business and in school.
“So that partnership — critical,” Anderson said.
While recent legislation, such as H.B. 447, has required school districts to begin focusing on programs such as CAPS, the Cache County School District has been intentionally working on developing those programs for over two years.
They have even extended partnership opportunities to Logan, Rich and Box Elder school districts as well.
“This fall we will be opening with our first two strands of opportunity for the students,” Anderson said.
Cache County School District will be kicking off their first two strands — business and education — at its May 15 open-house event. The details on the location and time of the event are still being finalized but it will offer parents and students an opportunity to learn more about the program and how to enroll in it.
“CTE is the opportunity for children to explore,” Anderson concluded, following his introductory speech.
For more information on Cache County School District’s Work Based Learning and CAPS programs, go to ccsdut.org.
The original article published by The Herald Journal can be found here.
