Reality Town a hit at Blessed Sacrament Catholic School

Photo courtesy of Sonia West

+ Enlarge

Blessed Sacrament Catholic School students visit 22 different booths simulating businesses manned by parent volunteers. The booths represented, medical and dental insurance, vehicle insurance, utilities, personal care, the grocery store and home improvement.

SANDY — Middle School students at Blessed Sacrament Catholic School participated in Reality Town April 22. Reality Town is an educational business program that was developed to teach students about budgeting, debt, fiscal responsibility and the importance of education. It was created by Jane Parker, a middle school business teacher. Since 1997, over 100,000 students have participated in the curriculum.

Students at Blessed Sacrament spent several weeks prior to the Reality Town under the direction of Jennifer Vanderbeek, Middle School teacher in four pre-simulation activities investigating career choices, composing a personal resume, completing and submitting a job application and learning to write checks and balance a check register. They also designed and constructed signs for the booths.

The students had a workbook with different real life scenarios from which to choose. Some of the choices included having a spouse go to school and work part-time, having a spouse stay home rather than incur day care expenses and how to transferring money from savings to checking and checking to savings.

The Reality Town simulation took place in the school gym. Students visited 22 different businesses manned by parent volunteers including housing, utilities, personal care, the grocery store and home improvement. Students began by recording their paycheck in the check register. They examined their personalized pay stub including tax withholdings, chosen career and the family scenario that was assigned to them.

Students then had to visit each of the businesses and make financial decisions based on their monthly salary. With each choice a check was written and recorded. Some students struggled to make ends meet and had to visit the financial counseling booth where they could apply for a second and sometimes third job.

The Blessed Sacrament Reality Town even included a park where Unified Police Officer Jeff West, wrote "tickets" for loitering and littering. "The benefit of Reality Town was that the students were able to experience firsthand how education, career choices, and life choices affect their daily lives," said Sonia West, advancement director.

"I think the students thoroughly enjoyed the simulation and I especially enjoyed the look on their faces when Officer West gave them a citation for speeding or littering. It was priceless," said Cheryl Illario, a parent volunteer.

Students will spend the next couple of weeks in post simulation activities including a lifestyle analysis. They will examine their budget and lifestyle decisions and will perform a simple debt vs. savings analysis of their own budget and learn what can be done differently in the future.

Vanderbeek will continue with this program next year. Students are excited about the program.

Seventh grader Emily Cokl said, "I think Reality Town was a good experience. It taught me that it isn’t easy to pay for everything when you are an adult. It also taught me that we have a pretty easy life right now. I had a lot of fun and I want to do it again next year."