Wichitas Junior Achievement program is in an aggressive growth mode, searching for volunteer teachers and sponsors from the business community.
The business education program, which uses professionals to teach free enterprise to elementary students in the Wichita school system, plans to add at least two new schools this spring, said Max Harris, a board member and retired local advertising executive.
So, Junior Achievement needs at least 25 business professionals and about $20,000 to teach the business classes as it gears up for the spring semester. The program placed more than 300 business and community volunteers in Wichita-area classrooms during the last school year, helping more than 7,000 children.
Weve got a couple more schools who want to join the program, and that will require more volunteers and more financial support. Were trying to get the word out, Harris said.
Theres a lot of room for the Wichita program to grow, said Marci Werne, the Junior Achievement district director. Her program is in 15 elementary schools, including the Maize school district, and her goal is every Wichita elementary school all 61 of them.
I think the community realizes how important it is to teach the students these concepts, Werne said. Theyre not getting it anywhere else. Topekas program is in almost every elementary school in town. It takes time.
Junior Achievement provides the volunteers with materials and lesson plans to teach children how businesses operate and the opportunities available to them if they work hard and are successful in school. Each course typically includes five 45-minute lesson plans.
Half of the volunteers job is to go over the lesson plan and their business experiences, Harris said. The second half of the class is an activity that teaches the lesson.
One example is having a pizza restaurant and whats involved in doing that hiring a cook, waitresses, cleaning staff. We go through the process of who you hire, what they do and how you set pricing to remain in business.
Its a big shift from the old Junior Achievement model, Harris said.
In the old days, Junior Achievement had projects after school for older kids, where they started a business, made a product and tried to take it to market, he said. We were reaching a limited number of students that way, and we felt it was better to get to as many kids as we could in the classroom.
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