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Finance class gets speakers’ support
The personal finance class as a graduation requirement moved a step
closer to reality this week after the Board voluntarily hosted a public
hearing. Of five speakers, one spoke against it.
Trustee Joe Gasperini, who pushed for the class, was pleased by the
hearing.
“People stop me on the street, call me, e-mail me,” saying they want it
made mandatory, Gasperini said.
He echoed comments from Trustee Roger Long, who said at the Monday
meeting that the class “is not a budget issue.”
The administration, which has endorsed the class, had put the pricetag
at about $227,400 once fully implemented. But Gasperini said new
teachers would not be hired; they’d be switched from and shared with
existing positions.
Once the Trustees submit the request to the Department of Education and
it’s approved, the class will be a graduation requirement for the
fall’s rising ninth graders.
Trustees have already approved the class, but held a public hearing
after several Trustees questioned its cost and the speed with which it
is being implemented.
At the hearing, Charles Purcell, the father of an eighth grader, held
up three credit-card offers he said had arrived in his mailbox that
day.
“Our young people need it; our society needs it,” Purcell said of the
class.
Nurse and mother Lisa Rosche lamented that “Kids now get credit cards
in the mail.”
“My son got one. He’s nine,” she added.
Children don’t always listen to parents, she said, and they might take
financial advice better from a class.
Fay Satterfield, a former educator, regretted that she never took
business courses in her high school.
Bernard Metzner not only approved of the class but suggested that the
School Board members take it.
John Woody cited investment guru Warren Buffett and said a class would
be good for children in the long run.
Opposing the class was Lisa Hatcher, a parent who suggested the class
would get in the way of other classes, especially for students seeking
an advanced diploma.
She said she’d rather see the money used to keep and recruit teachers.
The Board has yet to submit the request to the state.