Financial Literacy: Classroom to Work Environment

1. Financial Literacy: Classroom to Work Environment This is a year long unit that is designed to show students the relationship between their academic/professional efforts and their earning potential as it may directly affect their personal lifestyles. Your goal is to transform your classroom into a workplace in every facet possible. Examples may include, but are not limited to: • They do attendance now. They’ll do it in the form of timecards • Their grade is represented in $$, not letters. • It’s no longer an assignment, it’s a job/task • Try to give them work areas instead of desks • They’re no longer tested, but audited/evaluated • Healthy competition is encouraged as the workplace is a competitive environment • Just like a in the real workplace, if deserving, people can be fired

2. If Successful….. • It will indicate who may be the future managers/bosses within your class • In the same respect, it will give unmotivated students a glance at how their lifestyles will be negatively affected by their work ethic for as long as they are unwilling to develop healthy work habits • Along the way, they’ll inherit valuable financial literacy skills as well as an idea of where they may soon be ranked in the professional world. The collection of resources and processes that follow make up a yearlong unit that can certainly be tweaked, adjusted or improved on in any way, shape or form you feel fits your class best.

3. Time Cards • They are responsible for creating them, accurately documenting attendance, submitting them at the end of the pay period, and creating news at the beginning of new pay periods. •You can physically obtain real timecards or you can create or pirate a template from the internet. • It will be easier on you if you have the students do bi-weekly timecards. This way you only have to update the “earnings” spreadsheet every two weeks as opposed to every week. I also suggest fitting two weeks on one timecard (week one of pay period = front, week two = back) • Have the students total up their hours, and circle that figure at the bottom of each week. This will make updating the spreadsheet much faster. You may subtract hours on their time card from lack of participation.

6. Bill Chart • Allow each student to create his/her own bill chart based on the lifestyle that they desire upon becoming independent with their first paying job. • Individual options: Car payment or a beater, monthly savings deposit, roommate or live alone, cable/ internet or rough it, cell or land line • Rules: Everyone pays a practical rent, everyone has a car, everyone’s car requires gas and insurance, food/grocery prices must be practical • Allow students to research prices: look up apartment leases online, look up car insurance quotes for 18-20 year old drivers • They must see the numbers are real! You cannot just tell them, and they cannot just guess. They need to research it and establish an understanding of the financial requirements of independence.

7. Conversations to have… • $100/month for groceries doesn’t sound unreasonable to a high student. Break it down: 3 meals a day x 30 days a month = 90 meals/month divided by $100 = $1.11 per meal Is that reasonable? Adjust accordingly. • $75/month on gas doesn’t sound unreasonable to a high student. Break it down: Assume your car gets 20mpg and gas is $4.00 per gallon $75 buys you 19 gallons of gas @ 20 mpg: You’ll only be able to drive 380 miles per month 380 miles divided by 30 day/month = 12.6 miles per day Is that reasonable? Adjust accordingly. Give them ownership of their bill charts. Just guide them to create one that is practical!

10. Developing and Using Checks • Invite them to customize their own templates with their name and information on them. • When checks are due, they’ll print their personalized templates and write the checks themselves. • When bills are paid, often times they’re paid in bunches as you obtain pay checks. Ask students to print check templates 3 per page. If two pages are needed to pay all their bills, have them staple them together. • Spend a day (or as long as it takes) to teach check writing. What goes in the memo part, Why do I have to write the number out too, What goes in pay to the order of? •Give a check writing exercise to ensure they have the concept before launching the unit

14. Class Mailbox Maintaining/Utilizing a mailbox for checks adds an element of practicality to the unit. I encourage all of you to allow the class itself to create/design a mailbox for the unit. You may even want to have more than one mail box if you have more than one class. You can even use a real mailbox if you want. As explained in the check template section, it’s strongly recommended that students submit checks for a billing period (1st or 15th of the month) that are stapled together. Example: Ken has four payments due on the first of the month. He’ll write four separate checks and staple them together before placing them in the mailbox. Students could also place all their bill cycle checks in an envelope to keep them organized as well.

15. Mailboxes Continued… Mailbox Location: Having a consistent place for students to put them takes the burden of you handling each individual’s checks. Its location can be decided by the popular vote of your class. The worst place for a mailbox is on your desk. Checking the Mailbox: Make sure the checks from the 1st of the month are taken out of the mailbox before the students use the mailbox for their payments due on the 15th. Don’t check the mailbox during class. The postman is like Santa, we know he comes but we never see him.

18. Auditing Process Participation grades can be issued periodically for maintaining ledgers, bill charts, timecards and submitting checks. Eventually, each person should be randomly audited to ensure the correct amounts are being deposited and that all expenses are accounted for as withdraws in their account. Frequency: 4-5 students every payday or audit them all at one time. Either way, each student should have an audit a few times a year. What to look for: Is math in ledger right? Do deposits match pay history? Can student effectively write a check? Are all bills being paid as scheduled? Are all bills being paid on time? What’s in it for students: place a high grade emphasis on passing audits as if it were a financial literacy test, which it is in a way.

19. Auditing Process continued… Document location: All students’ documents related to this unit should be kept in the class in a folder/binder with his/her name on it. This will allow you to audit them without having them physically turn them in. If these documents are kept electronically, try to have them saved in a place that you have access to. If not, you’ll just have to ask the auditesto e-mail you the documents as attachments. The auditing process is important. It shows that you’re not doing this every two weeks throughout the entire school year for nothing. It adds an element of accountability and allows you to check for comprehension of financial processes.

20. There is a saying in business, “The more skin a person shows, the less power the person has.”

22. Great Fundraiser: Souper Bowl of Caring Join the movement that is transforming Super Bowl weekend into the nation’s Largest youth-led weekend of giving and serving. • Website has all the material • Collect money or food donations on or near Super bowl weekend. 100% of the collections are donated directly to the charity of each group’s choice.

23. Using Social Media in the Classroom Good Sites: My Big Campus Remind 101 Quiz Star Educational Web 2.0…gives you lots of sites Skype Pitterest Instagram Google Hangout You-Tube: Twitter “The Twiter Experiment in the classroom” Make a Facebook Page