March 4, 2020 at 4:27 p.m.
RHS sophomores get practice living on a budget
Mad Money designed to teach students financial responsibility
RHS sophomores get practice living on a budget
The daylong event featured a budget simulation, where students were given various careers and life situations, and then had to balancing their budget while obtaining housing, transportation, food, household necessities, clothing, day care, and then taking care of less critical wants and needs with what was left.
Students were each given a checkbook along with a starting amount for the simulation. Part of the exercise was teaching the students to balance the checkbook to account for all of the "purchases" they made.
The students also took part in employability skill sessions in the afternoon along with hearing from motivational speaker Mike McGowan. They also got to take part in mock job interviews with more than 30 business professionals from the community.
RHS business teacher Patrick Kubeny said that over the years, the grade level of students taking part in the Mad Money exercise has fluctuated between the juniors and senior classes before settling on the sophomores.
"We originally started doing this with our junior class we thought that was the sweet spot," Kubeny said. "That was before the ACT became a requirement that all juniors take it. So the year that became a requirement, we moved it to our seniors."
He said the senior mindset of "I'm too cool for this" led to not many of the students attending the program.
"So we moved it to the sophomores, and you can see that was probably a smart decision," Kubeny said gesturing to the large number of students in the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. "Because these kids aren't too cool for this, they're engaging in a manner that exceeds what our expectations would be."
Last year's event was canceled when a snowstorm closed schools in Rhinelander on the scheduled date of the event.
"Last year's seniors never got to do it," Kubeny said. "What it says about a program when seniors were coming up and asking 'Mr. Kubeny, are we going to reschedule this?' And I said we can't, it's too late."
He said last year's sophomores will go through the program next year when they are seniors, along with the sophomore class.
"We'll have a big group next year," Kubeny noted.
Kubeny said the highlight of the afternoon was a screening of the 37-minute documentary "The Most Important Class You Never Had."
"They filmed eight schools across the country as part of the documentary to try to get more schools to adopt a financial literacy semester course as a graduation requirement," Kubeny said. "It just went public (on YouTube) just a few weeks ago."
He noted that RHS was one of the eight schools chosen to be spotlighted in the documentary and does have that graduation requirement now.
"You must take personal money management before you graduate with this year's junior class," Kubeny said. "The seniors had economics or money management, now it's official that for juniors, money management is a requirement while economics is an elective."
He said Next Gen Personal Money Management, which produced the documentary, has the goal of having every high school graduate in the country have to take a money management course as a graduation requirement.
According to Kubeny, the various businesses that took part in the budget simulation are key to making the program a success. They included realtors, insurance companies, car dealers, utilities, stores, cellphone companies, charities, Nicolet College and the Rhinelander Police Department and Oneida County Sheriff's Office.
Sgt. Kurt Helke was on hand representing the RPD. His part of the simulation was to distribute "Fate cards" to the students. He said these cards can either be a positive, like a gift of money from their parents to a bonus at work, or negative, such as a traffic ticket or medical emergency.
Helke said when handing out the cards, he often looks at the situation the simulation has placed the student in. Some of the assigned jobs the students had did not pay as well as others.
"If it looks like the student is having a hard time because of their job, I will try to give them a positive card," Helke said. "Other times, I'll see a kid sitting in the bleachers not taking this seriously and I will give him a parking ticket to help motivate them."
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at jamie @rivernewsonline.com.
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