Junior Achievement, Your Community, and You Jennifer Anderson Senior Vice President Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas, Inc.

1.Overview of Junior Achievement 2.Whole School Program 3.New Middle School Programs 4.High School Technology Opportunities

Junior Achievement’s Mission: To educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics to improve the quality of their lives.

Junior Achievement Programs are available for Kindergarten through the 12 th grade. Programs generally supplement social studies Programs are facilitated by community volunteers

Lessons take minutes depending on grade level Volunteer comes in once a week to present Teacher and volunteer are a team who determines the best lessons/presentation/emphasis for their class

Materials are provided at no cost Volunteers and teachers receive training and orientation Correlations available for all programs with various curricula

Whole School Program Corporate partner adopts the entire school Corporation provides volunteers to facilitate JA lessons with all the classes Kick-off is held so that all classes will start in the same week Volunteers are able to provide the program consecutively every year

Vertical Alignment Junior Achievement Elementary Programs are aligned with the curriculum taught in the classroom and build on themselves each year. The themes for elementary are: Kindergarten – Ourselves First Grade – Our Families Second Grade – Our Community Third Grade – Our City Fourth Grade – Our Region Fifth Grade – Our Nation Each time the picture the students receives builds on what they’ve learned previously and expands their view of themselves and their place in the world.

Vertical Alignment, Cont’d Volunteers are asked to meet with their teachers before starting class Topics, skills or items that you feel need to be stressed can be shared with the volunteers Volunteers will then present those to the classroom to support vertical alignment

Vertical Alignment, Cont’d. For Example: Economics in 2 nd grade – the role of consumers and producers –1 st grade – can introduce while talking about meeting needs and wants –3 rd grade – can cover in lesson about restaurants in the city –Teacher sets the lead for what the volunteer covers.

Middle School Programs All programs have 6 activities JA Global Marketplace –Introduction into the global economy JA Economics for Success –Practical lessons on personal finance including budgeting, balancing a checkbook, using credit and risk JA America Works –Teaches economics through history –Includes immigration, industrialization, transportation, technology and entrepreneurship

Middle School Programs Because of the business/economics focus – new vocabulary opportunities throughout Volunteer can cover any terms that the teacher needs them to repeat for multiple exposure Hands on practice with workbooks and activities reinforces vocabulary Words are related both to the lesson and to experiences in the volunteers’ life and career

High School Technology Programs JA Personal Finance –Importance of personal financial literacy and investing their money. –Create an online portfolio of investments JA Titan –Use a simulation of a virtual company to apply economic theories learned in Economics class JA Banks in Action –Students use a virtual simulation to learn how to run their own bank –Study interest rates, investment rates, marketing and R&D for the banking industry

High School Programs, Cont’d. Volunteers present lessons to students explaining the technology Students then use the simulations to apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom Competitions are available nationally with opportunities for prizes for students

Volunteers – the key to the programs Volunteers are critical to JA programs and one of the hardest resources to find. Junior Achievement can help to recruit volunteers but we need assistance from the schools Share partner information, organizations that are involved with the school, potential partnerships

Volunteers JA has flyers that can be sent home with the students All it takes is one parent per class JA staff will attend PTA/PTO meetings to share information about the programs Once community members become involved in the school, the partnership grows

Volunteers, Cont’d. Using Junior Achievement programs, parents can be recruited as volunteers and have a structured and defined way to get involved in their child’s learning Most importantly – volunteers can show the students the importance and applicability of what they’re learning to their future success in life

Bringing JA to Your School List of Texas offices in your handouts – contact that office and work with them to bring appropriate programs to your schools