Redwood High School seniors will learn from advisers this week about how to pay their bills and keep to a budget.
A two-hour interactive lesson titled “Bite of Reality,” led by Redwood Credit Union and Ann Tepovich, an economics teacher who also teaches finance, will be offered to seniors on Thursday.
“Students are given a profession and income and through the simulation have to make spending and budgeting decisions,” Tepovich said. “Our hope with this activity is to reinforce lessons learned in our classrooms.”
Tepovich said Redwood is working on offering a full personal finance course in advance of the state Legislature’s mandate to offer at least a semester on the topic at every high school by the 2027-28 school year.
By the 2030-31 school year, at least one semester will be a high school graduation requirement under Assembly Bill 2927, passed into law last summer.
“Financial literacy is a critical tool that pays dividends for a lifetime,” said state Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire, who represents Marin. “There’s a wealth of data about the benefits of learning these valuable lessons in high school. Those range from improving credit scores and reducing default rates to increasing the likelihood that our future generations will maintain three months of savings for emergencies and have at least one kind of retirement account.”
In moving into the personal finance realm, Redwood joins Novato High School, which has offered a year-long personal finance class since 2019.
“It serves as a non-college preparatory option to meet the third-year math requirement for graduation,” said Leslie Benjamin, a spokesperson for the Novato Unified School District.
Other Marin high schools are exploring options for personal finance courses, said Laura Trahan, assistant superintendent in the Marin County Office of Education.
“Of our four high school districts, we have some that are dabbling in a course and others that are in the beginning of planning for this new graduation requirement,” Trahan said. “We are also toying with the idea of putting together a countywide ad hoc design committee on this that would include educators from the districts coming together to look carefully at this requirement and begin designing.”
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said AB 2927 makes California the 26th state to require personal finance as a high school graduation requirement.
In 2022, Thurmond announced $3.6 billion in state funding and $1.4 million in free access to professional development to support training teachers in personal finance instruction.
“Our young people need and deserve a clear understanding of personal finance so that they can make educated financial choices and build stable, successful futures for themselves and their future families,” Thurmond said. “By adding personal finance to our high school graduation requirements, we acknowledge that managing household finances and building financial stability are essential life skills.”
