Fairfax high schools debut financial literacy course

Much of the course curriculum is delivered through an online textbook, which, for a unit on buying a car, allowed students to pick from a selection of vehicles ranging from the safe and economic to the luxurious and high-priced.

“I liked working on the car loan project,” said freshman Julia Bruce, 14. She chose a 2005 Toyota Prius. “We went on a Web site that showed a bunch of cars and we had to pick one and calculate how we were going to pay for it.”

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Several students said they chose the more expensive, sporty cars first, but soon learned that such dream purchases might have to wait until later in life.

Oakton teacher Brandon McCulla taught economics and personal finance for the first time last year and is teaching it again this year. This year’s class has more freshmen because of the new requirement, he said. In his class of 28 students, 16 are freshmen, five are sophomores, one is a junior and six are seniors.

“For the upperclassmen that take this, it’s really about the money management,” McCulla said. “It focuses a lot on the personal finance element. Budgeting is a big part of that. Balancing a checkbook, savings accounts . . . we do a stock market simulation, the kids get really excited about that.”

The class probably is more appropriately aimed at upperclassmen, fellow teacher Luke Haen said.

“It’s more relevant to them,” he said. “They grasp it easier because they think, ‘I have bills to pay,’ or whatever.”

Senior Gabriel Torres, 17, said he took the class because he wants to be a responsible college spender.

“[Because of] the feeling of independence and being away from home, I think, I would be more prone to spending money,” Torres said.

McCulla said he could have benefited from the course in high school.

“My school did not offer a personal finance course,” he said. “I tell [students] all the time they’re lucky. . . . We do a great thing with credit cards where we teach them the dangers of debt and the benefits [of having cards].”

The goal of the course is to send students into the world financially literate so that parents “know that their students are going to be okay and they don’t have to worry so much,” he added.