Springfield’s GO CAPS program to shut down after low enrollment

Ben Hackenwerth: SPS tried different strategies to grow interest in GO CAPS.

Cayden Irons: Program provides workplace skills, clarity about career goals.

Mary Edgerton: Student interest highest in medicine, health care career strand.

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Amid declining enrollment, Springfield Public Schools will end a career exploration program for high school students widely known as GO CAPS.

The Greater Ozarks Centers for Advanced Professional Studies launched in August 2015 and reached a peak, in number of students and career pathways, prior to the pandemic.

Ben Hackenwerth, chief strategy and innovation officer with SPS, said enrollment has been dropping steadily in recent years and participation declined by nearly 15% since 2023.

“It’s just not a sustainable model,” he said.

The program was championed by former SPS Superintendent John Jungmann, who patterned it after model programs in Missouri, including one in the Kansas City area. Embedded in Springfield businesses, the program was intended to be a hub for regional students.

The premise was simple: Provide hands-on career exploration and workplace skills for high school juniors and seniors. The half-day program emphasized project-based learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, job shadowing, and exposure to a range of guest speakers.

Hackenwerth said teachers also focused on teaching skills needed to obtain and keep jobs.

At its height, the Springfield program served roughly a dozen partnering districts. Currently, only Logan-Rogersville, Nixa, Ozark and Republic are involved. The seven career pathways dropped to just three: business and entrepreneurship, engineering and manufacturing, and medicine and health care.

Mary Edgerton, director of GO CAPS, was one of the two teachers in the medicine and health care pathway when 100 students were enrolled.

“On the other side of the pandemic, our numbers dwindled enough that we had to even reduce to one instructor,” she said.

SPS said the pathway, which has remained the most popular, served a total of 128 students over the past three years.

Hackenwerth said the combined enrollment for all career pathways dropped below 70 this semester. The annual budget for the program is $368,176.

Cayden Irons, a senior at Ozark High School, is part of the business and entrepreneurship pathway, which meets at the Efactory.

Other pathways meet at Cox North and the Plaster Center for Advanced Manufacturing at Ozarks Technical Community College.

Irons was among the 14 students who wrote a letter stating the mid-January decision to shut down the program was “deeply disappointing.”

“GO CAPS has been one of the most impactful parts of my education. It taught me professionalism, confidence and how to navigate real-world workplace environments. These are skills that aren’t always emphasized in traditional classrooms,” said Irons, in an interview with the Springfield Business Journal.

“It opened doors to opportunities I would not have had otherwise, especially job shadows, where I have learned about our legal system from federal attorneys and the legislative process from lawmakers. These experiences gave me clarity about my future.”

In an attempt to revitalize the program, Edgerton and Hackenwerth said SPS retooled how partnering districts were charged for sending students and the way the option was marketed to families, but enrollment did not increase.

Hackenwerth said while interest in GO CAPS has dwindled, the district has expanded other offerings that have grown in popularity.

The five high schools in SPS offer engineering and biomedical programs, part of the Project Lead the Way offerings, and business and marketing programs. There are options through the Alliance for Healthcare Education and Ozarks Tech’s Middle College and career and technical education programs.

“The really good news is students have lots and lots of options,” Hackenwerth said. “They have more opportunity than they’ve ever had, and this is an example of the numbers tell us what it is they want.”

He said the district will still work closely with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, which helped grow the GO CAPS program, on efforts to engage high school students in career options.

Springfield’s program will end in May, but three area districts established GO CAPS programs of their own, which are expected to continue. The hubs are located in Monett, Lebanon and Branson.