WASHINGTON, D.C. – “You take the money you have, you invest it, and then you watch it work for you.”
Here at Legends Charter school, which fittingly sits in a corporate office area of Washington D.C., Financial Education is comprehensively built into the curriculum and offered to the entire school community.
”A payment that is taken out of your bank account… it’s debit. Every single class in here is named after a stock portfolio,” said Shomari James, co-founder, CEO Equity Now.
James, one of the four founding members of Legends, wanted the student body of mostly minority children to get real-life experiences in investing and how money works.
”This is the machine that has your money and it’s hooked up to your bank. When you have an understanding about money, it changes things, it opens things up for you,” said James.
The kids couldn’t have better teachers on the subject. Shomari snatched people, like Justin Devoe, right out of the financial world, convincing them that helping these kids is their true calling.
”So when you start investing don’t get scared or upset because you don’t have a lot of money right away.”
The kids are extra invested in this class because they can win hundreds of dollars in scholarship money to invest in their own portfolios.
”You really need to learn how to invest and grow you money at a young age, and I think that’s really good for young kids to learn that,” said 5th grader Sincere Turner.
As it turns out, Turner is really good at investing. He’s one of the current students picked to use scholarship dollars to build up his personal portfolio.
The school uses its resources to help create wealth for the adults as well, who are part of the Legends community.
”We know what teacher wages are so what Justin does is he holds specific classes for just the teachers to talk to them about their finances or financial education as well,so they can feel prepared,” said James.
”I love the fact that he also, the financial department, Mr. Devoe also helps the parents as well to save, to start investing in stocks and stuff like that,” said Dionna Towell, Legends parent and teacher.
Legends is a school that’s taking investing into one’s community to a whole new exciting level.