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Freshmen to experience realities of good grades
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| By: ADAM NORTHAM, DAILY LEADER Staff Writer |
October 26, 2009 |
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How much money is a high school freshman's GPA really worth?
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Close to 500 ninth-graders across Lincoln County may soon find out.
The Junior Auxiliary of Brookhaven is partnering with Mississippi Scholars to set up Reality Town, a one-day, hands-on program meant to show the correlation between students' academic performance in high school and their anticipated yearly earnings as a single 20-something working in Mississippi. The two groups are inviting every ninth-grader in county, city and private schools to attend the event, which is scheduled for Jan. 20, 21 and 22 at the Lincoln Center, pending participation by the schools.
"It's just going to make (freshmen) realize the importance of getting an education and how it can help them financially and in their careers," said Mississippi Scholars Chairman Kenny Goza. "It's one more tool to put in the bag ... something that will make them go, 'Gosh, I want some opportunities, and to do that I've got to apply myself in the classroom.'"
JA President Emily Henderson said students participating in Reality Town will be issued a "salary" based on their first semester grade point averages and presented with a list of services they will need to survive, like utilities, transportation and insurance. Students will visit booths manned by representatives from a handful of local businesses and purchase the necessities of life while balancing their checkbooks...
... if they can afford it.
"If they have an 80-100, or As and Bs, they're going to be earning what the average 25-year-old single adult earns in Mississippi, about $25,000 per year," Henderson said. "If you have a C average, it's around $17,000. If you have Ds and Fs, we're going to assume you're close to dropping out, and you'll be a non-diploma worker with an annual salary of $12,000."
To make the simulation even more life-like, each freshmen will also have to draw a card from the challenge table - like Community Chest or Chance in the board game "Monopoly" - that will either give them an unexpected financial boost or force them to budget for an unplanned expense.
JA and Mississippi Scholars representatives will pitch Reality Town to local school administrators and businesses Tuesday at an organizational meeting at the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce at 8:30 a.m.
The meeting's special guest will be Dr. Greg Paczak, a guidance counselor at the all-freshmen Rosa Scott School of Madison who has run more than 500 freshmen per year through Reality Town since 2004, when Rosa Scott picked up on the event from schools in West Point.
"Ninth-graders are not so far along in their academic careers to where they can't make a difference in the grades that occur after the (reality) fair," he said. "They have an opportunity still to impact the remaining three and one-half years of their high school careers in a positive manner."
Paczak said the bottom line of Reality Town is to motivate students to perform better in the classroom. He said most people are kinesthetic learners, meaning they learn best using the hand-on approach, and Reality Town's walk-through simulation drives home the point.
"They're not being told about how to write a check or live within a budget, they're doing it," Paczak said. 'It becomes very personal."
Aside from teaching a potentially hard lesson about the relationship between academic and financial success, Paczak said the event doubles as a dropout prevention method by urging students to focus on their high school education.
"Research has shown that if students can be promoted to the tenth grade on time, after one year in ninth grade, the odds of them graduating high school on time, or at all, increases exponentially," he said.
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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