Program Name: The Young Consumer
Nominator's Name: H. Glen Donelson
Title: Project Director
Address: 30 Church Street
City/State/Zip: Pennsville NJ 08070
Nominator's Telephone Number: 856-540-6203
Organization: Salem County School-To-Careers Initiative
Address: 30 Church Street
City/State/Zip: Pennsville NJ 08070
List of Community Partners: Businesses, community, parents, grandparents, elected officials, community members, teachers, school administrators, school board members
The nominated program focuses on the following grade level or area: Elementary
District:  Pennsville
County: Salem
Address: 30 Church Street
City/State/Zip: Pennsville NJ 08070
District Superintendent: Robert A. Peddle, Ed.D.
District Telephone Number: 856-540-6210
Date of Program Initiation: September 1997

Area 1: Goals:

A goal of The Young Consumer program is that every child behave intelligently by demonstrating his/her ability to be a quality or effective worker, a complex thinker, a communicator, a community contributor, and self-directed learner. The performance criteria for students are based on evidence of intelligent behavior and academic performance. Another goal of this program is the improvement of students' test scores.

The Young Consumer program addresses all five of the cross-content workplace readiness standards and has a major focus on the academic areas of mathematics, science, and language art. The program is extremely flexible and can easily be expanded to include social studies and comprehensive health and physical education.

Area 2: Activities:

The best part about The Young Consumer program is that it is not a "canned" presentation. It allows for adaptation by the classroom teacher. The activities greatly facilitate the infusion of career development into the curriculum in a manner that is appealing to everyone, particularly students and parents. While the focus of the program is on the integration of math, language arts, science, and the workplace readiness standards and skills, a number of schools have expanded the activities to include music, art, and health.

To initiate The Young Consumer program, professional development workshops are held with classroom teachers, both regular and special ed. The teachers are provided knowledge about learning and the human brain to connect to hands-on learning activities in the classroom. The workshops give tools and ideas to teachers on how the activities can infuse the workplace standards into the academic curriculum utilizing assessment or instructional strategies. The teachers are shown how to engage students in the use of manipulatives in class to aid in understanding math; technology is introduced; and communications skills are honed.

At the workshops, care is given to show how parents and families can be brought into the process. A family night is planned by each classroom or school. If done correctly, parent/family night generates great interest. For example, one of the schools had 125 student participants with 70 plus parents attending family night. Overall, more than 50 percent of the parents attend. Usually, the business partner attends this event too. At family night, parents get involved in using the hands-on activities, and quickly learn that some of the problem solving activities are not easy.

The culminating activity is for all the students, regular and special education, to visit a supermarket and put the skills which they have learned to the test. They will be evaluated on how close they can come to spending a hypothetical $100 on feeding a family of four for a week and the nutritional foods they purchase. In addition, they are judged on teamwork and safety. They must also interview at least three adults, in different jobs, who they meet in the store. After this, they are interviewed by judges who ask them a series of questions about their experience. Of course, this helps their communication skills.

Throughout the shopping experience they encounter problem stations where they have to stop and solve problems. For example, a wealthy man owned a bar of silver 30 inches long. He agreed to pay an artisan exactly 1/30 of the bar for each day worked. However, he found the bar difficult to cut, and wished to avoid making 29 cuts. The problem: How could the wealthy man make the least amount of cuts to the silver bar to assure the artisan is paid for each day worked?

The Young Consumer program is a framework that provides a new design for organizing and implementing instruction. The teacher as curriculum leader with the assistance of parents, community leaders, and business partners plan a unit of study that culminates with a learning experience at the local shopping center. The Young Consumer program, as used in Salem County, extends learning into the community, and the program shows that learning must be a shared responsibility among school, home, and business.

Area 3: Outside Resources:

The Young Consumer Program is strongly supported by the supermarkets. We have numerous ShopRite, Acme, and SuperFresh markets that partner with us to allow the students to have the culminating activity in their stores. Keep in mind, this event occurs during normal business hours while regular shoppers are in the store. The major financial cost is the culminating activity and this cost is assumed by the store owner. The first cost for the store owner is that of providing each student with a Young Consumer T-shirt.

At the store, students are permitted to fill up their shopping cart with every item except for perishable items, which they write down the UPC code. Then the store owner provides cashiers to ring up the purchases, and finally they have their people restock the items on the shelves. Most of the owners provide either lunch or snacks to the students, teachers, and parent/family chaperones. As shown by their attendance, parents and community leaders strongly support the program.

Area 4: Evaluation:

The impact has been unbelievable. The program has been a catalyst to unite teaching staff in the schools, and it has accomplished a major task of getting parents and community leaders involved. At one event, two of the judges were mayors of two different communities. Though from different political parties, they sat side by side in the interview process.

The Young Consumer program, as used in Salem County, is extending learning into the community, and the program shows that learning must be a shared responsibility among school, home, and business. Student achievement in the ESPA proficiency has increased in math, language arts, and science in those schools using the Young Consumer program. Math scores have improved as much as 25%; language arts 30%; science 3 to 5%.

Area 5: Stability:

This is the fifth year that we have had the Young Consumer program and the program coordinator has the longest longevity of any school-to-careers leader in New Jersey. Last year we had over 600 students and over 300 parents involved. The number will be higher this school year since additional schools and classes have joined the program. The major cost of the program is assumed by the store owners who are pleased with the results and plan to stay involved. The only costs to school districts are for transportation and teacher training.

The Young Consumer program was the only school-to-careers activity from New Jersey asked to present at the National School-to-Work Conference in Washington, D.C. in October 2000. The National Career Guidance News published an article on the Young Consumer in their Summer 2001 edition as a New Jersey best practice. It is also listed as a best practice in the New Jersey Department of Education cross-content workplace readiness framework.

Area 6: Endorsements:

"The beauty of the Young Consumer program is that it reaches from the school community to the business community and draws in parents and volunteers from all walks of life. The focus of the Young Consumer program also allows us to integrate the instruction of the special area teachers such as art, music, and health into the fourth grade curriculum. In addition, we believe that our focus on the challenges [of] real-life problem solving through the Young Consumer program enable our fourth grade students to increase their math scores on the 2001 ESPA by 12%."

Gail Taylor, recent retired Instructional Supervisor at the Mary S. Shoemaker School in Woodstown

"I feel that the Young Consumer program is an excellent way to teach children math skills, nutrition, social skills, and budgeting. Going on a field trip is always exciting for them and they don't realize what these skills will do for them in the future. As a parent, I would love to see this program continue for future students."

Carol Pangburn, parent of a 4th grader at the Penn Beach Elementary School

"I feel the Young Consumer Program gives the children an opportunity to experience practical everyday decision making skills regarding proper nutrition and budgeting. Additionally, this program provides the community an opportunity to experience the many benefits that Bottino's ShopRite has to offer."

Maria Bottino, owner of Bottino's ShopRite

"While the Young Consumer program may not be the only reason, math scores at the Penn Beach School in Pennsville have dramatically improved since they have participated in the program."