Classroom Economy Gets Us Ready for Life

School:: Collier Charter Academy
Subject:: Mathematics
Teacher:: Lynne Belliveau
Students Impacted:: 70
Grade:: 6
Date:: September 4, 2017

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

Perna-Rose Foundation for Hope - $732.00

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 62

62 Students were impacted with the grant.

We use a positive behavior support system at our school and to supplement that, the Classroom Economy program helped students select classroom leadership positions. They practiced responsibility and accountabilty on a daily basis and were paid token money for their work, including bonuses for academic achievement and volunteering. Students tracked their earnings, budgeted and saved, and learned how important it was to provide services to the community. Monthly auctions were difficult to conduct with fidelity within three homerooms. Students voted for a change. Due to Hurricane Irma, students wanted to give back to their community. They saved pennies to donate $86.24 to a local charity from their own money and voted to match it with grant dollars in December rather than having some of the auctions.

As a culminating incentive students will be having an award ceremony next week with earned prizes for 6 behavioral role models (top 10% of the grade level) and top academic achievers in 4 subject areas of ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies. For a final project, all math classes will be using their new budgeting skills to prepare a budget as if they are just getting a job after college. They will determine their taxes, utilities, savings, etc.

This project has helped 62 students prepare for the real world, take pride in their work and have a heightened awareness of saving and budgeting. They enjoyed having the end of year celebration and awards.

Original Grant Overview

Goal

Through implementation of Vanguard's "My Classroom Economy" students will learn how to balance a budget understanding income and expenses while applying math skills in the classroom environment. Students will be more prepared to earn/save/spend money outside of school. Smooth classroom management for more effective learning as well as cooperation and team building will be anticipated by-products of Classroom Economy.

What will be done with my students

The students will apply for and be offered classroom jobs. They will earn a monthly salary for jobs and bonuses (ex. for service learning or additional responsibilities )with token money or paychecks. They will fill out deposit and withdrawal slips. They will mainting accurate bank and rent logs. They will pay rent for their desks. There will fines to pay for consequences for unmet classroom expectations (ex. returning a classroom library book on time) At the end of the month, after they pay all their bills, they will be able to bid at auction on various items provided for by this grant. One day per month the students will develop a monthly budget based on income, expenses and goals set for bonuses and fines. Bonuses are necessary because regular salaries do not cover the monthly expenses. Students will need to reflect on prior month's budget fill in actual income and expenses to determine what changes are necessary to meet all bills and fines the following month. Students will be able to set short and long term goals. After banking there is an auction where students can bid on items with token money they want to spend.

Benefits to my students

Students will learn how to keep track of their earnings, how to budget and save, how to get letters of recommendations, how to be responsible for committments and how important it is to provide services to community organizations. This program instills basic financial responsibility as students apply their math skills in a real-world context. Students invest in the classroom community as their jobs contribute to the smooth, efficient operation of the classroom.

Budget Narrative

All of the items are for the monthly auctions. I have 3 classes. The gift cards will be from places such as McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. The other items purchased each month are mechanical pencils and colored pencils. This was the concensus from students for what they would like to bid on at auction.

Items

#	Item	Cost
1	2 x $5 gift Cards for 9 months for 3 classes	$270.00
2	27 Mechanical Pencils	$54.00
3	e-readers for End of Year Saver Awards	$300.00
4	27 sets of Crayola Twistable Colored Pencils	$108.00
	Total:	$732.00

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