×

Marshalltown School District works to implement required financial literacy course

T-R PHOTO BY SARA JORDAN-HEINTZ At Monday evening’s Marshalltown School Board meeting, representatives from the district told the board of the plans in place to implement a newly required financial literacy course for high schoolers. Left to right: Director of Instruction Dr. Lisa Stevenson, Marshalltown High School Principal Jacque Wyant and Marshalltown Learning Academy Principal Eric Goslinga.

In December 2018, the Marshalltown School Board learned of the school district’s difficulty in implementing a financial literacy education mandate required by the state. At Monday’s meeting, Director of Instruction Dr. Lisa Stevenson, Marshalltown High School Principal Jacque Wyant and Marshalltown Learning Academy Principal Eric Goslinga presented a plan before the school board to phase in the financial literacy course.

The Iowa Department of Education now requires high schoolers, beginning with the graduating class of 2020, complete a one-half unit of financial literacy in order to graduate. While officials at the district feel the class will be beneficial to students, the limited time given in which to implement it has proved challenging.

“These are junior students who already have their four-year plan laid out for them, and then they get this additional course added to them, and while many students will be OK with that, there are a few who will be entering our peer program in the fall because they’re already behind and this is putting a crunch on them,” Stevenson said.

The new course will be offered in a variety of ways, including an in-person classroom setting, online and a blend of the two. The coursework will not differ among the different formats.

“One of the ways we’re working to try to meet this requirement in a way that is resource neutral to the district, and to accommodate kids with a variety of different schedules, is we’ve developed an online and blended option for students so they can access the course online and complete it that way, and not necessarily have to block a period of their day in order to access the course,” Goslinga said. “Staff from the MLA campus will facilitate it.”

Stevenson said the online format the district has created encompasses every bulleted standard and topic that must be covered in the course, as laid out by the Iowa Department of Education.

Superintendent Theron Schutte said he is opposed to the district having to deal with unfunded and underfunded mandates from the state. In addition, he said offering the course online could prove challenging.

“If the (Iowa) Legislature doesn’t allocate at least $500,000 for Iowa Learning Online, it may not be in existence next fall, so even if we were to subscribe to that at $280 per student for those that would want to do it, there’s no guarantee it’s even going to be in place next year,” he said.

At a vote of 6-0, the board approved the plan, which outlines that the Class of 2020, 2021 and 2022 will take the financial literacy course as an elective credit out of 22 required credits. It will be taken pass/fail. For students that will be in the class of 2023 and beyond, the financial literacy course will be a social studies credit out of 22 required credits. It will be included in the GPA.

The next Marshalltown School Board meeting is set for 5 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Central Administration Office, 1002 S. Third Ave.

——

Contact Sara Jordan-Heintz at

641-753-6611 or

sjordan@timesrepublican.com

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.38/week.

Subscribe Today