By Lauren Vaught
Staff Writer

Junior Achievement of Georgia is now teaching classes, in finance, for Morgan County High School Seniors using local financial personnel in the community as teachers.

According to Junior Achievement of Georgia, Inc., the programs are meant to prepare young adults for the global economy and bring the real world to students by using hands-on experiences. The JA program teaches children about today’s economy and how to manage your money in it.

“Kids come out of high school and don’t know much about personal finance,” said Brian Cook, Morgan County High School Counselor. But the JA Financial Literacy program teaches skills like decision making, organizing, financial planning, analyzing information, public speaking and reading comprehension.

Morgan County High School requires their seniors to participate in the program.

“You have to be mature and responsible enough for it to be relevant and be able to use it,” Cook said.

The JA classes are taught during the seniors’ advising period.

“It teaches us how to keep up with our finances in school,” said Payal Patel, a JA student at Morgan County High School.

In five weeks the students will complete the program.

“We’ve only been through week two, but were learning about how to manage the money we’ll make in our career,” Patel said. 

Junior Achievement finds the community volunteers who teach the students.

“JA volunteers are found      in a variety of ways. Speaking to various     organizations (like the Rotary Club), press coverage and they  contact me for more information, I call on local business about getting involved with the program and alloing their employees to volunteer during working  hours and, of course,  word of mouth,” said Pat Moslow, junior Achievement employee.

Junior achievement takes care of all the education training the volunteers need. They lay out a detailed guide to teach by and encourage the volunteers interweave their business experiences into the lessons.

“All materials for each curiculum come    with a very detailed lesson plan that outlines what will be covered in   each session and all the    materials for the classroom. In addition, I meet  with each volunteer, or  group of volunteers, and review all the materials with  them,” Moslow said.

This is the first year that Morgan County has the program offered in schools.

“It’s a brand new thing,” said Cook, “so far we’ve got good feed back.”

Just as the Junior Achievement mission statement says, the students will learn skills and knowledge that will help them make good financial decisions throughout life.

“I’m using it right now,” said Patel.