CCHS builds interest in CAPS program

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Tammy Wheeler is hoping to create community interest in a new high school business class.

Wheeler, who is a business education teacher at Charles City High School, is promoting CAPS, which is a class that will be offered to juniors and seniors at CCHS at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.

“The class is driven by projects that businesses give to me, so that I can share them out with our students,” Wheeler said. “They then will actually work on the projects.”

CAPS stands for the  Center for Advanced Professional Studies. It is a collaboration between business, community and education to provide students with professional experiences.

The class will take high school students out of the classroom for three periods each day and immerse them into a professional environment off campus, where they work on real projects for various businesses and organizations in the Charles City area.

Wheeler called the program career-oriented, and said that it wasn’t on-the-job-training or work experience, but actually doing real projects with real businesses in the community. A lot of time is spent teaching the students professional skills, such as how to send a message, how to dress, how to talk.

Wheeler said CAPS was not a job or an internship.

“It’s not where students come to your business and file paperwork and sweep floors,” Wheeler said. “I am trying to train our students in the class to be business professionals and actually partner with businesses, organizations and individuals to do real projects in the Charles City community.”

CAPS works with businesses to identify problems that they need to get done and then finds students with an interest in that area to tackle it. The top two CAPS skills for students are a customer obsession and being a self-driven learner, Wheeler said.

The program looks for real problems or tasks that the student can handle that will really benefit the business, she said.

“We’re not looking for a handout, we’re looking for a handshake,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler has been busy sending project request forms out to local businesses. She said she has sent emails out to 25-30 businesses already and has received a lot of interest.

She said eight or nine students are signed up for first semester next year and 13 students are already signed up for the class for second semester. The class will be limited to 15 students.

One of the goals of the Charles City School District is for its high school students to get some of their education outside the high school building in the “real world.”

CCHS Principal Bryan Jurrens has said the district had been hearing from graduates that they were lacking basic jobs skills when they graduated. Wheeler said CAPS fits well into that goal.

Wheeler urged any business owner who has a problem a student might be able to work on – or who would like to talk over potential CAPS ideas – to contact her. Businesses and individuals interested in CAPS can reach out to Wheeler by email at twheele@charlescityschools.org.