At the end of the day, financial literacy is about making sure a household can survive and make it to the next month.
To Pennsylvania state Rep. Rosemary Brown, it's a skill that all high school students should learn before graduating high school. She is close to introducing a bill that would make financial literacy classes a high school graduation requirement in the state.
"When you have those skills, you can make better decisions," she said during a recent interview in her office.
The initial idea for the bill stemmed from the difficult economy, Brown said, talking with people and realizing there was a need for the skills.
The class would cover everything from balancing a checkbook and credit cards to interest rates, mortgages and insurance.
"These are things I never got in high school," she said. "I'm still always consistently picking up pieces of information."
The class would add a little more for the kids who grow up in a household where money isn't talked about often. In the fall, Brown hosted a Reality Fair at East Stroudsburg High School South that simulated how household budgeting works. She partnered with the local credit union and student credit union, and the students were taken through what it means to balance household finances in a month's time.
She said she has been working with the Pennsylvania Department of Education to come up with reasonable means of getting more students to complete the course. Currently, the department doesn't provide districts with curriculum, but it does make resources and sample teaching plans available for teaching financial literacy to students.
The department is in the process of reviewing Brown's proposal. Meanwhile, area schools do offer some financial classes already.
Pleasant Valley High School has various courses that touch on finances, such as economics and courses in the family consumer science classes, but it's a class that is "absolutely vital" for students, said Kenneth Newman, assistant superintendent for curriculum.
There are classes for students that touch on financial literacy in the East Stroudsburg Area School District, said Thomas Lesniewski, assistant superintendent of curriculum for grades 6-12 for East Stroudsburg Area School District.
The high schools offer a personal finances course, and the topic is touched upon in the family consumer science classes, but none of it is a requirement for students.
While he said the class is a positive for students, he hopes the law will be clear and specify what the kids need to be taught. Another challenge will be determining if it fits into the social studies or business courses, and which teachers have more content knowledge to teach the course.
Some schools have a finance class listed under the business category, while others have it in different forms.
Stroudsburg School District ninth graders are required to take a class called "This Is Your Life," which does provide fundamentals of financial and resource management, said Wanda Lesoine, director of curriculum in the district.
Students can also choose a personal finance course as an elective, and next year, the high school will offer economics.
Lesioine said that if the legislation becomes a mandate, the courses presently taught would have to be reviewed to see if or what revisions would be needed to meet a new requirement.
"The implementation of a new course could impact staffing and student scheduling," she said.
Pocono Mountain School District has been a step ahead of Brown and the other districts, though. The district implemented a financial literacy course during the 2013-14 school year. Since then, the course has been tweaked each year to match the needs of the students.
Catherine Sweeney, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said the class came after a survey of parents and students revealed that a financial literacy class would be beneficial for the students.
The 45-day course, which is required for all seniors to take, covers a wide array of topics including credit scores, taxes, bank accounts, savings accounts, 401(k) plans, credit unions and future planning, said Steven Spengler, the director of instructional technology.
He said taxes have been a hot topic for the kids.
"Our kids didn't seem to know a lot about taxes," he said.
The students didn't seem to know a lot about taxes and filling out the forms, he said.
Personal finances are also touched upon in other classes, such as family and consumer science classes that some students take at Pocono Mountain.
If the piece of legislation turns into law, it probably wouldn't change what is already being done in the district, said Wendy Frable, district spokeswoman.
©2016 the Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, Pa., distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
