I reached out to our FinLit Fanatics group recently requesting names of administrators who "get it" when it comes to financial education. I heard from a teacher at Lomira High School (WI) who recommended her principal, Deb Janke, who has been "super supportive in my quest of making our financial literacy courses effective!" In this podcast, Deb shares the process her school went through to ensure that all students took a personal finance course before they graduated as well as the benefits that she has seen in her school and the community. She also provides some tips for teachers interested in sitting down with their principal to advocate for finance education. Enjoy! 

Details:

• 0:00~1:26 Introduction
• 1:26~3:22 Her school and community
• 3:22~6:33 Deb’s early money lessons and her first job
• 6:33~12:00 Making personal finance a requirement
• 12:00~12:23 A Word from NGPF
• 12:23~14:13 Relationships with the community
• 14:13~16:24 Benefits of making the course a requirement at her high school
• 16:24~18:32 Tips for teachers pitching a course to administrators
• 18:32~19:59 The importance of personal finance
• 19:59~21:39 Conclusion

Quotes:

• “One of the things we encourage our high schoolers to do the most is we want kids to obviously have academics as their top focus but we always encourage them to get a little job somewhere on the side because the money brings about a such a different sense of responsibility but the other part is the connections they make with other kids, employers, and people that you don’t see at school every day.”

• “Coming [to an administrator] with a full plan including here’s why I want to do it, here’s why I know our kids would benefit from it, and here’s what I need to get it started will make it a fairly easy sell.”

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Interested in advocating for financial education at your school? Be sure to check out the Advocacy section of the NGPF website.