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Finance class deal sealed 4-3
Beginning with the fall’s incoming freshmen, personal finance will be a
high school graduation requirement just like government and English.
(Technically, the State Department of Education must approve the
graduation-requirement request, but other divisions already have made
such a class mandatory with DOE approval.)
The Halifax County School Board passed the class on a split 4-3 vote on
Monday night, with Trustees Walter Potts, Roger Long, Joe Gasperini and
Steve Anderson voting in support. Arthur Reynolds, Stuart Comer and
D.H. McDowell opposed the class. Devin Snead abstained.
McDowell added that he wasn’t against the class, but he was unsure how
it would be funded.
Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Joe Griles endorsed the class,
citing statistics that showed wide-ranging financial illiteracy among
young people. Sixty-three percent of teenagers get a credit card before
they turn 19, he said.
Gasperini, a board newcomer and local businessman who proposed the
class last month, said it could be the most important class students
will take.
Fully funded as a mandatory class for every student, the class will
cost about $227,400 a year, administration figures show.
In other school board meeting action, the Trustees:
• heard a report from Maintenance Director Larry Roller on roof
replacements. Still needed is a new roof over parts of the high school.
• heard from District 13 Virginia Education Association President
Bonnie Bowen, who pressed for teacher pay hikes.
• honored Ting-Ting Jin, a Halifax County High School senior, who won
first place in a logo-design contest for Southern Piedmont Career
Pathways Consortium, among more than 100 entries.
• heard from high school and middle school Future Farmers of America in
recognition of FFA Week next week.