July 12, 2011
Eleven-year-old Kaela Moore knows about video games and Facebook, but she would rather discuss the New York Stock Exchange, personal finance and résumé building.
She’s not alone. A number of her friends in the Southern University College of Business Garrett A. Morgan/Ford PAS Summer Business Institute talk about the importance of saving money and future job opportunities as often as possible.
And, Kaela Moore knows number better than most. She earned a perfect score on the math portion of the state’s Integrated Louisiana Educational Assessment Program, or iLEAP, examination. The iLEAP exam combines a norm-referenced test, which compares a student’s test results to the performance of students in a national sample, with a criterion-referenced test, which reports student results in terms of the state’s achievement levels
Moore, who will be sixth grader at Southern University Laboratory School in the fall, is in her second consecutive year at the camp which focuses on math instruction, improving test-taking skills for the iLEAP, entrepreneurship, computer mentoring, management, marketing and basic economics.
Garrett A. Morgan Co-Director Toni Jackson said the program gives the students something beneficial during their summer vacation and puts them ahead of the peers for the following school year.
“We try to make sure children don’t fall victim to the summer slide. It also helps to prepare students for college,” said Jackson, with the SU College of Business.
Moore said she has seen immediate benefits of the program. She said her 5th grade year was a breeze because “I was surprised that I learned the same things” while in the Morgan program the prior summer. “I was at the top of my class because I already learned the information at the Garrett A. Morgan Institute.”
“I also plan to use what I have learned to advance in my weakest subjects in math, such as positive and negative numbers, in case I see it again in the sixth grade,” Moore said.
The camp, which has participants from a number of elementary and middle schools, introduces students to the business world by using topics they are familiar use with. Students must have a 2.2 or above grade point average to be eligible to participate in the institute. High school students participate in the program through a partnership with the Urban Restoration Business Center.
Maya Jones, a six grader to be at Southern Lab, said she is being taught about the New York Stock Exchange “and I learned how to trade stocks such as Apple, the iPhone and the iPod.” Financial literacy games are also used to teach students about inflation, deflation and credit accounts.
“We want to show the students the world of work and that they can work for themselves,” said Elizabeth Sorrell, co-director of the program. “But they have to have the knowledge and skills to do it.”
As reinforcement, the students are working on their own business plans that they will present during the camps closing ceremony later in July.
“When I grow up, I plan to be a teacher and an entrepreneur and the Garrett A. Morgan Institute has prepared me for what I can expect in the real world,” Moore said.
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