Finance Park

[Anonymous]

My 8th grader loved this field trip last year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grader loved this field trip last year!

Yep. Anytime students can get out of the school for real life experiences!

[Anonymous]

I volunteered with my child and it was great with the exception of the occasional trouble maker.

It was fun to see how kids “learned” budgeting and how they didn’t have enough $$$ to buy everything and thus, they needed to make trade offs.

My child really enjoyed the esoerience as well.

[Anonymous]

I volunteered and enjoyed it a lot.

When I was there, a handful of the volunteers were 20 somethings from some big corporation that has volunteer hours for their employees.

[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.

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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?

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.

LOL

Not really. MCPS does have the money, but isn’t doing anything to decrease class sizes. Instead, MCPS leadership chooses to waste millions on useless initiatives and other nonsense (like paying off the previous superintendent).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Mcps still has 150 plus job openings. I think they need to fill those before they start creating jobs for a field trip

[Anonymous]

And if they can get volunteers from companies, why are they pushing for parent volunteers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And if they can get volunteers from companies, why are they pushing for parent volunteers?

Most field trip need parent volunteers to shepherd the kids to and from school, on the bus, etc. The people onsite stay onsite. Those roles are not interchangeable, do you understand? If there aren't enough parent volunteers, other school adults need to take time off from their other duties to accompany the field trip, since there's only a certain ratio allowed of adult:kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And if they can get volunteers from companies, why are they pushing for parent volunteers?

Most field trip need parent volunteers to shepherd the kids to and from school, on the bus, etc. The people onsite stay onsite. Those roles are not interchangeable, do you understand? If there aren't enough parent volunteers, other school adults need to take time off from their other duties to accompany the field trip, since there's only a certain ratio allowed of adult:kids.

Supervising a field trip is the job of school adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And if they can get volunteers from companies, why are they pushing for parent volunteers?

Schools with a FARMS rate of over 50% will qualify for corporate volunteers. They assume that parents at the other schools will come and support the school. I teach at a school that hoovers around 50%. This year we are under 50% so we don't have corporate volunteers. Parents aren't stepping up. The more volunteers the smaller the groups of students will be. Please support your school and volunteer if you have the ability to do so.

[Anonymous]

The idea that parents shouldn't be involved in the community is.. wow.

[Anonymous]

I volunteered as a parent for Finance Park and ran one of the storefronts when my child’s school was there on their field trip a few years ago. It was a lot of fun and seemed very engaging for most of the kids!

Students were each assigned a backstory with an income level and family to provide for. They moved in small groups among the different staffed store fronts as they figured out housing options, food budget, insurance coverage, transportation options such as whether they can afford a car, etc.

My child loved it.

[Anonymous]

Is the Finance Park inside the HS or in its own separate building next to HS? Do the MS students eat anywhere near any HS students?

[Anonymous]

Now if only they would continue the learning in a realistic way in HS. Like making kids run an actual store and balance the books. Or run the concession stands with parent and volunteer support. Do real science presentations where they have to utilize the math skills they are learning.

[Anonymous]

Sem 2 Health covers Finance Literacy apparently. That's the only continuation that they get in HS