Finance Park

[Anonymous]

New Financial Literacy Program for All

I'm MCPS, all Grade 7 students will spend three weeks in their social studies class learning important principles of financial literacy like saving, investing and budgeting. Their learning culminates in a field trip to Finance Park Montgomery to put into practice what they learned through a real-life simulation in which they must shop for what they need to live and work but stay within their budget.

Finance Park is located at the new Edison High School of Technology where students will also learn about career programs of study available in high schools around the county.

Parent and Community Volunteers are an essential component of the Finance Park experience. Each school must recruit up to 20 volunteers for each day they attend Finance Park.

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Questions:
If they need up to 40 volunteers for each school (if a school goes over 2 days), why doesn't MCPS hire staff to run Finance Park? That is 40 (# of MS) times 40 volunteers (or at least 20 volunteers if volunteers can assist both days) = 800 to 1600 volunteers (is that math right, MCPS?

Did your kid go? Did they learn anything? Did you volunteer and do you recommend to other parents? What duties did you have as a volunteer at the venue other than crowd control and corralling students?

[Anonymous]

Does this three week study and simulation that is done in 7th grade relate to the financial math course offered in HS?

[Anonymous]

Because there's no money to hire people for a field trip that happens once a year? Volunteers/chaperones are essential for any field trip, nothing new there.

If you don't want to volunteer then don't, but it was a great experience for students, they really loved it. Volunteers help with answering questions too, "howuch can I spend on..." Kids always come back excited to talk about their experience and comparing their choices.

[Anonymous]

https://www.myja.org/financepark

[Anonymous]

I volunteered with Cabin John and it was great. Either volunteer or don’t but MCPS funds don’t need to hire people for this task.

[Anonymous]

I did not volunteer. My kid did not find the activities very helpful, but then we've been explaining budgeting, short term and long term, to our kids since they were in elementary. They ran through a number of scenarios over there, and my kid found it very mildly entertaining, as in, "yeah, this is different from regular school!", but for her it was nothing new.

[Anonymous]

Finance Park isn’t a new field trip

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Financial Literacy Program for All

I'm MCPS, all Grade 7 students will spend three weeks in their social studies class learning important principles of financial literacy like saving, investing and budgeting. Their learning culminates in a field trip to Finance Park Montgomery to put into practice what they learned through a real-life simulation in which they must shop for what they need to live and work but stay within their budget.

Finance Park is located at the new Edison High School of Technology where students will also learn about career programs of study available in high schools around the county.

Parent and Community Volunteers are an essential component of the Finance Park experience. Each school must recruit up to 20 volunteers for each day they attend Finance Park.

-------------------
Questions:
If they need up to 40 volunteers for each school (if a school goes over 2 days), why doesn't MCPS hire staff to run Finance Park? That is 40 (# of MS) times 40 volunteers (or at least 20 volunteers if volunteers can assist both days) = 800 to 1600 volunteers (is that math right, MCPS?

Did your kid go? Did they learn anything? Did you volunteer and do you recommend to other parents? What duties did you have as a volunteer at the venue other than crowd control and corralling students?

If a program needs staff, it should be staffed. MCPS has the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Financial Literacy Program for All

I'm MCPS, all Grade 7 students will spend three weeks in their social studies class learning important principles of financial literacy like saving, investing and budgeting. Their learning culminates in a field trip to Finance Park Montgomery to put into practice what they learned through a real-life simulation in which they must shop for what they need to live and work but stay within their budget.

Finance Park is located at the new Edison High School of Technology where students will also learn about career programs of study available in high schools around the county.

Parent and Community Volunteers are an essential component of the Finance Park experience. Each school must recruit up to 20 volunteers for each day they attend Finance Park.

-------------------
Questions:
If they need up to 40 volunteers for each school (if a school goes over 2 days), why doesn't MCPS hire staff to run Finance Park? That is 40 (# of MS) times 40 volunteers (or at least 20 volunteers if volunteers can assist both days) = 800 to 1600 volunteers (is that math right, MCPS?

Did your kid go? Did they learn anything? Did you volunteer and do you recommend to other parents? What duties did you have as a volunteer at the venue other than crowd control and corralling students?

If a program needs staff, it should be staffed. MCPS has the money.

MCPS is trying to fund enough classroom teachers and get class sizes down.

[Anonymous]

it does not need staff - just because someone said it on this website does not make it true. Teachers are there to help if enough volunteers do not attend.

Move on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Financial Literacy Program for All

I'm MCPS, all Grade 7 students will spend three weeks in their social studies class learning important principles of financial literacy like saving, investing and budgeting. Their learning culminates in a field trip to Finance Park Montgomery to put into practice what they learned through a real-life simulation in which they must shop for what they need to live and work but stay within their budget.

Finance Park is located at the new Edison High School of Technology where students will also learn about career programs of study available in high schools around the county.

Parent and Community Volunteers are an essential component of the Finance Park experience. Each school must recruit up to 20 volunteers for each day they attend Finance Park.

-------------------
Questions:
If they need up to 40 volunteers for each school (if a school goes over 2 days), why doesn't MCPS hire staff to run Finance Park? That is 40 (# of MS) times 40 volunteers (or at least 20 volunteers if volunteers can assist both days) = 800 to 1600 volunteers (is that math right, MCPS?

Did your kid go? Did they learn anything? Did you volunteer and do you recommend to other parents? What duties did you have as a volunteer at the venue other than crowd control and corralling students?

If a program needs staff, it should be staffed. MCPS has the money.

MCPS is trying to fund enough classroom teachers and get class sizes down.

Are they? Large class sizes keep parents demanding more funding and get parents to agree to tax increases.
MCPS just wasted $100M without a thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it does not need staff - just because someone said it on this website does not make it true. Teachers are there to help if enough volunteers do not attend.

Move on

Correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it does not need staff - just because someone said it on this website does not make it true. Teachers are there to help if enough volunteers do not attend.

Move on

If they can get the number of teachers to help, why ask for volunteers?

[Anonymous]

This isn't a new field trip. Our school has done it for at least the past several years.

[Anonymous]

The field trip is jointly run by MCPS and Junior Achievement. Junior Achievement does reach out and try to get corporate volunteers. There are many big organizations that will give their employees time off to volunteer.

They also want parent volunteer because it can be more relevant for students to learn from someone from the community. Parents can share their personal financial stories with the students.

Volunteers run a 'store front' and lead small groups of students through financial simulations like buying a car or budgeting for daycare. Each small group of students will rotate through different stations with different financial situations.

It is a valuable experience for students. It is a good introduction to financial literacy and helps puts what whey have learned in the classroom into a real world situation.

Thanks for supporting your community.