For the third consecutive year, the national organization Working in Support of Education (w!se) has named Churchville-Chili High School a Blue Star School; and for the second year, included the school on its list of Top 100 Best Blue Star High Schools. Churchville-Chili teacher Wendy Larsen, who leads the program in C-C and who has been honored by w!se as a Gold Star teacher since the program’s inception in 2009, says the recognition acknowledges schools that provide their students with the skills and knowledge needed to become financially capable young adults.
“My hope is that when students leave our Money Management class (offered in grades 10-12), they have learned the necessity to save and be smart about where and how they spend their money,” says Larsen. “Even as priorities change throughout their lives, this knowledge will lead not only to their financial success, but to their overall success.”
It is no easy feat to earn the Blue Star status. A school must offer a course on personal finance, aligned to national and state standards. Then students must achieve a 75 percent passing rate on w!se’s Financial Literacy Certification Test, with either a majority of students at grade level taking the exam, or with participants achieving an average score of 80 percent or higher. (Gold Star teachers, like Larsen, have a class with 90 percent or more students passing the w!se Financial Literacy Certification Test.)
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