Junior Achievement continues to prep students

Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, said local organization president Nita Cook.

This year, JA celebrates 50 years of empowering young people to own their economic success, she said, through in-class lessons that complement formal studies and give the students real life experiences.

Cook said the program begins in kindergarten and first grade teaching youngsters the important difference between wants and needs. The process is simple.

“They’ll have a picture of food.

Is that a need or a want? Then they have a picture of a puppy dog,” Cook said.

Those choices get more complex as the students get older, she said. By high school, they are deciding whether an $80 pair of jeans is a need or a want; and if they spend the money on jeans, can they afford a car note or a concert ticket?

“So they have to learn to balance. They learn about the economy that way,” Cook said.

Cook said the JA of old has undergone some needed updating over the years.

It’s gone from an after school program that generally made a product and sold it door-to-door to teaching students how to become successful from the ground up. “Every three years, the curriculum is tweaked to stay relevant,” she said.

Local JA program manager Meg Goorley works with the local volunteers who actually go into the classrooms to help teach the children about the real world. She was a JA volunteer 20 years ago and has returned to the program after changing careers. “I taught second and third grade. A lot of the things were the same. But, I’ve really noticed that JA USA has really paid attention, and they have adapted their curriculum,” Goorley said.

Currently, JA of North Louisiana is spreading the word about entrepreneurship in 19 local schools. The lessons are designed to complement the Common Core curriculum guides in the public schools.

The units dovetail with what teachers are teaching in English, language arts and mathematics, Cook said, and they are taught in a way that makes them interesting and relevant. This year, about 7,000 students will be able to participate.

That number will grow, she said, as more people recognize the good work JA is doing.

“I think one of the things that so important about Junior Achievement is that kids are deciding around middle school whether they are going to stay in school,” Cook said. “Middle school is when students are deciding whether they can be successful in school. That’s when they need these inspirational mentors, a lot.

That’s why we’re concentrating on that as JA USA and JA NLA.”

Those decisions affect more than individual students, she said.

“The way we track how many kids are in high school is when they start the ninth grade. How many kids graduate?

But if they are in middle school and never go to the ninth grade, they’re not counted. So how does that tweak your numbers? If they never even go to ninth grade, they’re not counted as high school dropouts in our numbers. That’s bad. That’s wrong.”

Cook said the program depends on volunteers to teach students and local businesses to make an investment in this future workforce.

Training of volunteers takes about an hour. The teaching requires a commitment of less than 10 hours, Cook said, and those hours can be over a day, a week or even three weeks.

She said it only takes about $25 to provide the curriculum for each student, and anyone interested in contributing in any way is encouraged to call JA at 861-5998.

–Joe Todaro