Junior Achievement’s Finance Park Teaches Middle School Students Real Life Budgeting Skill
- October 28, 2011
This week, students like Sherwood Middle Academic Magnet School’s Trevor Andre (pictured yesterday paying his virtual electric bill) learned about budgeting and real-life bills and expectations during the Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park. This innovative financial education program teaches middle school students how to prepare for the real world through practical lessons in money management and is held at Cortana Mall every fall. The program marries Capital One’s long-standing commitment to life-phase financial education with a comprehensive, hands-on curriculum developed by Junior Achievement.
Middle school students from throughout the district participated in the hands-on program. This unique, award-winning program begins with four weeks of intensive in-classroom financial education lessons. Students then put their newly learned money management skills to the test in a high-tech learning environment at the mall, which houses a mock city where students can experience the challenges of making real-life financial decisions.
While at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park, students are assigned fictional jobs, incomes, families and expenses. They are then expected to develop and stick to appropriate budgets. Students are faced with real-life decisions about housing, furnishings, investments, food, entertainment, phone, cable, savings and charitable contributions -- all of the decisions they will ultimately make upon entering adulthood.
About 150 Capital One Bank associates mentored the students along their financial journeys at the park. This year, it is projected Junior Achievement will ensure more than 2,700 students in our community receive the benefit of the JA Finance Park. For more information, contact Junior Achievement President Kathy Arnes at (225) 928-7008.
Principal Brister in Washington, D.C., to Accept McKinley Middle School’s Second Blue Ribbon Award
On Tuesday, November 13, 2012, Principal Herman Brister (pictured, left) and the school’s Teacher of the Year, Lynn Williamson (right), were in Washington, D.C., accepting McKinley Middle Academic Magnet School’s National Blue Ribbon Award from U.S. Department of Education’s Director of National Blue Ribbon Schools Program Aba Kumi (center). The event, which recognized some 314 schools from across the United States, was held at the Omni Hotel. Click herefor story.
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