Jill Lucero
For nearly two decades, high school educator Jill Lucero has been teaching personal finance to high school students. Jill's innovative classroom activities have reached approximately 2,000 Wyoming students, teaching them the importance of financial independence.
Before her career as a teacher, Jill spent two years in the hotel management industry. Growing up with a mother who worked as an educator, Jill was driven to bring her passion for business into the classroom. She soon went back to school and earned a business teaching certificate and has spent her career educating students since 1992.
Jill started exploring creative ways to teach personal finance 19 years ago when she began teaching a Consumer Economics class at East High School in Cheyenne. The curriculum focused primarily on shopping, but Jill wanted to prepare her students for post-graduation personal finance management. Jill's background in business helped her brainstorm innovative ideas to develop a new class called Money 101.
The class is structured to include hands-on activities and Jill has found great success in utilizing a classroom incentive program with her students. Throughout this one-semester class, students are responsible for managing their classroom money or "thunderbucks." Each period, students earn – or lose – thunderbucks depending on a performance and grades. Students are charged for being tardy, using hall passes and having their phones out in class. They learn to keep track of their money through using check register and managing budgets and savings. Near the end of the semester, students have the opportunity to use their thunderbucks to buy back assignments and rework them for a better grade. Some have improved their overall grade by 10-15 percent through this program.
"It teaches them how to budget in a real world situation, problem solve, and make good financial decisions," Jill explains. Their enthusiasm for the incentive program is evident; Jill has observed them monitoring one another, creating their own rules and even loaning each other money.
Several guest speakers visiting the classroom during the semester to talk about banking, investing, and insurance. Students are able to obtain real life perspectives from these professionals. Jill explains that guest speakers help students "make a connection to the outside world and see a relevance in what they are learning in the classroom."
Jill's commitment to education resonates beyond her classroom. She serves on the Wyoming Jump$tart Coalition board, an affiliate of the National Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. This has been a valuable asset and resource for her teaching endeavors. In April 2014, her class participated in a citywide Financial Football competition, during which local high schools competed to test their knowledge about personal finance. Governor of Wyoming Matt Mead and Denver Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler served as team captains at this exciting educational event hosted by Visa at the Hershler building in Cheyenne.
Providing her students with the knowledge they need to be financially independent after graduation is Jill's main focus in the classroom. She is committed to helping her students "understand the importance of saving money and managing debt and loans."
Practical Money Skills would like to commend Jill Lucero for her ongoing commitment to financial literacy at East High School in Cheyenne, WY.
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