The following post is one in a series of inspiring stories from NGPF's Gold Standard Challenge Grant Program which incentivizes high schools and districts to commit to ALL students taking personal finance courses before graduation. Learn more, and apply for your $2,500 to $30,000 Gold Standard Challenge Grant before the August 31, 2022 deadline here.

About Today's Guest Author

Rachel Litzinger is an educator at Tyrone Area High School in Tyrone, Pennsylvania. Their school is the 137th recipient of the Gold Standard Challenge grant. Here is Rachel describing Tyrone Area’s journey to the Gold Standard.

Describe a rough timeline for how you and/or your colleagues were able to advocate for personal finance to become a graduation requirement in your school/district. How long did it take? What were the major progress milestones?

It took us about a year to get it approved from the start of the idea to approval. The graduation requirement will be implemented starting with the class of 2022. We discussed the idea within our department and then presented it to our administration along with another graduation requirement of a workplace readiness course. The administration presented it to the board for approval.

What challenges did you encounter in your efforts to make personal finance a graduation requirement, and what solutions did you find for these challenges?

The primary challenge was the timeline to get it approved in order to have the graduation requirement in place as soon as possible. We made sure to schedule meetings with the administration before the course description book and student handbook updates, which provide the details on graduation requirements, were to be presented to the board so that we could get things moving.

What/who were the "catalysts for change" that allowed your efforts to be successful?

NGPF gave me the idea that this is something that should be a requirement and the educational resources to deliver engaging lessons.

Which stakeholders (students, parents, admin, business leaders, school board, etc) were helpful partners in your quest to make the graduation requirement happen?

Our students and administration were very helpful in making this happen. Our student newspaper wrote a story about the importance of personal finance and our administration advocated for the graduation requirement to the board.

About the Author

Guest Post