BERLIN – Bank of Ocean City officials and school staff honored students at Stephen Decatur High School (SDHS) Tuesday for completing the EverFi Financial Literacy program.
Kurt Marx, economics teacher at SDHS, said 45 of the 47 students who participated in the program completed all nine courses, the highest completion rate in the five years the school has offered EverFi.
In the ceremony, students had the opportunity to celebrate their achievements and listen to Bank of Ocean City Vice President Earl Conley as he commended those who completed the program.
“There is a little thing I like to call personal responsibility,” Conley said.
“It is not taught a lot. It is not encouraged a lot. But you are at the age where personal accountability and responsibility is going to fall on your shoulders. Figure out what you want to do. Regardless of the election outcome, the opportunities for you to succeed are there. It comes down to how much you want it and how bad you want it.”
The bank-sponsored program began five years ago as a way for students to fulfill the state’s standards on personal finance curriculum, according to Marx. Since then, the school has worked with the Bank of Ocean City to implement the EverFi course into its business classes.
The Financial Literacy program is divided into nine courses: savings, banking, payment types, credit scores, higher education, renting vs. owning, insurance and tax, consumer protection and investing.
Andrew Duley, a student in Marx’s business and finance class, offered the highest praise for the Financial Literacy program.
“It’s probably the best program I’ve ever done in school,” he said. “The program is in a great format. It’s very easy to understand and it walks you through everything.”
Duley said the simulated program lets the user decide certain life outcomes and provides different financial strategies to spending and savings.
He said the most interesting course in the Financial Literacy program was the higher education course, which offered a cost-benefit analysis of an acquired degree.
“You always hear, ‘Go to college. Go to college. Go to college,’” he said. “And that (course) actually says you statistically earn more if you go to college. However depending on what you are going to college for, it might not even pay off.”
Student Matt Kristick said he plans to use the financial course to study business and economics at college.
“You kind of learn life skills and the importance of saving money, from retirement savings to insurance plans,” he said. “It’s the basic financial planning you are going to need when you graduate high school.”
Peyton Dunham, student speaker at the certification ceremony, said the EverFi program, as well as Marx’s class, have taught students to invest in their future.
“The way to live a comfortable lifestyle isn’t to escape the system, but rather how to work the system,” she said. “Learning what insurance is right for you, getting insurance early, being financially literate, investing in your retirement or savings, and making sure you plan out your life financially so you can have a comfortable life. I think that is what EverFi is about, teaching us these things so that we can have a comfortable and pleasurable life …”
Marx said students completed the course both in class and at home and are graded based on a series of unit quizzes. He said the EverFi course helps enforce the lessons that are taught in the classroom.
Conley said the EverFi course is offered to Marx’s students twice each year to coincide with the school’s semester-based system. He added that the bank also sponsors the course at Worcester Preparatory School once a year.
The students will now join more than 400 certified students who completed the program with the Bank of Ocean City’s sponsorship, according to Conley.
