The fourth grade classes at St. Ed’s have been participating in My Classroom Economy, an activity curriculum created by the Vanguard Group for classrooms across the country to use for free.

“In social studies, one of the big things we talk about is economics, so we incorporated this to give them student responsibility,” Laufersweiler said. “It helps with our discipline and it teaches them a lot about the real world.”

Each student has a job, which varies from fine officer to banker to store clerk to news director and more, and they each receive a monthly salary.

“They also have to pay rent,” Laufersweiler added. “It costs $100 a month to rent their desks, or they can buy it for $300 if they save that much.”

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Ava Bradley, a fourth grader at St. Edmond Elementary School, counts out her money to “buy” her desk from teacher Susan Laufersweiler.

While the rent for a desk is $100 a month, most of the student’s salaries are $70 or $80 a month, meaning they must earn extra cash to be able to afford their rent and spend money in the class store, or they have to take out loans from the class bank.

“They can do book reports to earn more money,” Laufersweiler said. “They can do a few other things.”

Students in the classes also face fines for various infractions like not turning in their homework or having a messy work space.

“I love it for the discipline piece,” Laufersweiler said. “It keeps things orderly. They don’t like having fines, so it’s an easy consequence that doesn’t take too much from them, and it seems to work.”

This is the second year that Laufersweiler’s class has done this program.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Toryn Helle purchases items in the classroom store on Friday afternoon. Helle uses the “money” she works hard for during the week as a fine officer for her fourth grade class economics program.

The program has been very meaningful to the students and the students have been taking it seriously, said Ashley Doster, the other fourth grade teacher.

“It helps them make smart decisions as well,” she said.

Alexander Bouna thinks his job as a banker is the best because he enjoys the math that is required.

“For me personally, you get to do math daily if people put money into the bank or take it out,” he said. “I always like a challenge.”

Karlee Hamilton, a fine officer in Doster’s class, said she has learned a lot from this activity.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
St. Edmond Elementary School fourth graders line up to pay their monthly rent on their desks as part of a classroom economics project the fourth grade classes are doing.

“That you have to pay back your loans, or else it just adds up,” she said. “And if you don’t get enough money for your desk, you have to get a loan and that could end up a lot.”

Parker Ollinger, a student in Doster’s class, thinks it’s important for the fourth graders to learn these economic lessons “so you can know how to do it when you’re in the real world when you’re older.”

Doster agrees that the classroom economics program helps her students understand the complex nature of finances long before most of them will have to face it in the outside world.

“Loans are complicated for a lot of people to understand,” she said. “So this helps the fourth graders to understand that they have to put all their money toward their loan so that they can narrow it down to nothing.”

In addition to learning about working for a salary, managing loans and paying rent, the students learn about budgeting and not spending too much money at the class store.

“I think it’s important for them to learn the responsibility of money and that it doesn’t grow on trees,” Laufersweiler said.