The baking industry workforce challenges are complex. The US education system has been moving away from funneling students into trades for decades now, promoting college education as the best path forward. The image of manufacturing as a career path has declined in the eyes of students, with more visible jobs like technology taking center stage. Baking companies are swimming against multiple currents to recruit and retain workers.
There’s no silver bullet solution to these challenges. But one program based in the Blue Valley School District in the Kansas City metro area is doing its part to connect industries with high schools and give students the opportunity to explore potential career paths. The Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) is a program of profession-based learning aimed at supporting high school students — juniors and seniors — as they find their passions in the hopes of matching them to opportunities in the workforce. The program partners with high schools, industry, higher education and communities to develop curricula that allow students to learn industry-specific skills as well as project management and durable skills such as conflict management, communication, collaboration and critical thinking.
At the Blue Valley flagship program, students can choose between six studies: bioscience, foods and entrepreneurship, business technology and media, engineering, teacher education and law, or medicine and health care. When I visited the Blue Valley CAPS program last month, the food science students were testing prototypes for their pitch later that week to chef Paul Wahlberg of Wahlburgers. The students had developed several prototypes that would pair well with the burger chain’s famous Wahl Sauce. Through this project, the students have had the opportunity to not only prep and cook food safely, but they also learn how to develop a product through trial and error and pitch it.
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