For one day, Destini Glover-Allen was a quality assurance manager with a $69,216 annual income and net monthly income of $4,269 \u2014 plus a spouse\u2019s net monthly income of $2,876 \u2014 and had to allocate those funds between needs, like groceries and insurance bills, and wants, like dining and entertainment.<\/p>\n
Robert Rivera had to decide the same, but with a $29,414 annual income and a net monthly income of $1,960 as an occupational therapy aide.<\/p>\n
All was part of a financial literacy exercise last week at Dieruff High School, aimed at providing hands-on experience with monthly budgeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially now, everything is getting more expensive,\u201d said Glover-Allen, a 16-year-old Dieruff junior. \u201cIt\u2019ll be better for us to understand what we\u2019re spending our money on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wednesday event, dubbed the JA Finance Park, brought community volunteers into the Allentown school to bring to life curriculum from the Junior Achievement of Southeastern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit serves eight counties, including Lehigh and Northampton. Its newly released high-school-level financial literacy course focuses on topics such as budgeting and investments.<\/p>\n
Each student was assigned a persona that came with a job and related income. It was an eye opener for some.<\/p>\n
Rivera, 15, said he\u2019d come to the conclusion that renting could have advantages over home ownership after talking to a community volunteer about home maintenance costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to fix your roof, that can be a lot, a lot of money,\u201d Rivera said.<\/p>\n
Overall, the financial literacy lessons helped prepare students for the future, Rivera said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to teach people how to have success,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The JA financial literacy curriculum aligns with requirements set by a 2023 state law that requires all Pennsylvania high school students to complete a course in personal financial literacy starting with the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a very basic level it\u2019s about money management and how that is connected to whatever it is that you\u2019re choosing to do in the future,\u201d said Stephanie Gambone, president and CEO of JA\u2019s regional chapter.<\/p>\n
In addition to the Finance Park simulation, JA\u2019s curriculum includes other hands-on elements, such as a stock market challenge, to bring an experiential element to the financial literacy content.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also allows young people to practice it,\u201d Gambone said.<\/p>\n
Wednesday was the first time Allentown high school students worked through the JA Finance Park simulation. South Mountain Middle School students piloted the event in June, and all the district middle school students will participate in March.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit trains teachers and supports their delivery of the JA financial literacy curriculum. There also is a virtual option, although the lessons are primarily designed for in-person instruction.<\/p>\n
JA hopes to pilot the high school course in Allentown this spring, Gambone said. The nonprofit is working to expand its financial literacy lessons into other area schools, and has had interest from Bethlehem Area School District, she added.<\/p>\n
At Dieruff, the Gear Up college and career counselors provided 12 hours of preview lessons before the Finance Park event.<\/p>\n
Counselor Jayson Spangler said students sometimes tune out advice from teachers but the simulation offered a chance to hear third-party advice from outside sources that might sink in more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a classroom,\u201d Spangler said.<\/p>\n
Volunteers share their own background and experiences with the students, providing different points of view, counselor Lori Shuhler said. Students need to learn how to start building credit and how to avoid piling up college loan debt, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to start budgeting now,\u201d Shuhler said.<\/p>\n
Yuliany Batista, a 16-year-old Dieruff junior, has worked retail and food service jobs. She was one of several students and instructors who mentioned how eye-opening it is to learn how taxes impact paychecks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took a whole shift from me,\u201d Batista said, describing that tax impact.<\/p>\n
The financial literacy lessons made Batista think more about how to find a good job that can cover her expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it\u2019s hard saving up,\u201d Batista said, \u201cso I\u2019ve got to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For one day, Destini Glover-Allen was a quality assurance manager with a $69,216 annual income and net monthly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,227,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-43116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-lehigh-county","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}