PHS students get lesson in civics, personal financial literacy

PALMER — For more than 10 years, longtime Palmer resident Helen Munoz has advocated for financial literacy in K-12 education. Beginning with the graduating class of 2016, the Mat-Su Borough School District School Board approved a requirement that all Mat-Su students take a semester of civics, which includes personal financial literacy.

Visiting Mr. Kyle Drasky’s freshman civics class at Palmer High School recently, Mrs. Munoz chuckled when some of the students read their portfolios, learned their annual income, and received “life surprises” thrown at them.

“It is all about the choices you make,” Drasky said. “And your needs must come before your wants.”

Personal budgeting is a part of the simulation game played by the civics students in which their portfolios set up personal life scenarios, such as whether an individual was married, had children, had a college education, or was unemployed, etc. These life scenarios then dictated their budget requirements. Every student’s goal was to have money left at the end of the simulation.

Thrown at the students were life surprise situations such as, “You contracted pink eye; children’s glasses were smashed and the replacement is $100; or, must pay $477 per month in student loans.” While Munoz was in the classroom, one fortunate student received a life surprise of a 5 percent raise in salary.

“Don’t go blow it,” she said.

If Mat-Su residents have been to a Palmer Chamber of Commerce meeting, they have heard Helen Munoz speak about personal financial literacy. For years, she served on the Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union board.

The Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union has hosted four Get REAL Financial Reality Fairs in Mat-Su schools this year, and Munoz has been on hand to help students with the personal budgeting at the fairs.

MSBSD Superintendent Dr. Deena Paramo invited Munoz to come into a financial literacy class in the district. She has known Palmer High School social studies teacher Kyle Drasky all of his life. So visiting his classroom was a circle of life experience for Munoz as she observed Drasky’s teaching.