An effort a couple of years in the making came to full fruition as a ribbon-cutting celebrated the hard-opening of a new IQ Credit Union student-run campus branch at Prairie High School on Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Student-run campus branches are a pivotal part of IQ Credit Union’s financial education program and are located at several high schools in Clark County. The bank branches are open exclusively to students and staff and are operated by students.
“It gives students phenomenal, great skills that they can put on their resume,” Prairie High School personal finance, IQ and business teacher, Jenn Engelbart said. “So cash handling, customer service, problem solving and just the financial literacy that comes along with the class allows these students to take those skills and move forward in their future more successfully.”
The Prairie High School campus branch will be open during lunches besides on Wednesdays. As students will be bank tellers, they first gain the valuable experience of cash handling, customer service and financial knowledge.
“Also in the second semester of the program, it really focuses on campaign buildings and so they learn marketing, they learn business, how to find what really motivates students to open accounts,” Engelbart said. “Then they use that information to better help support the campaign. The second semester is a culmination of finance and business.”
After the ribbon cutting, Engelbart was excited for the opportunity that the school-to-bank partnership creates. But the experience created just enhances the skills that students have already gained from dealing in coffee.
“I’m just really excited that our students are now given the opportunity that a lot of other schools already have,” she said. “And so for them, it’s like I said, the cash handling and the customer service, we run a Falcon Fuel coffee cart here in the morning. A lot of the students here in this class also run that, so it even helps cement the skills that they learn in this class.”
The students handle much smaller cash limits compared to a regular bank branch. But that also allows the experience building of opening more accounts for student peers.
“We can talk to students about different financial products and knowledge that they can gain,” Engelbart said. “So we’ve had a lot of great conversations with students in the commons about credit cards, about home lending, right? Because we know that home prices are going way up, so it just opens the door for much bigger conversations.”
Engelbart said she is glad Prairie High School staff helped facilitate the partnership for students to gain more transferable skills.
