Parkdale High School in Riverdale will offer a few of its students a program in the coming year that will break new ground in Prince George’s County.
The program is banking — as in real people moving real cash.
Beginning in August, 10 seniors at Parkdale will work as bank tellers at a real bank within the school, in addition to attending their normal classes. The student tellers will handle the deposits and withdrawals of their classmates and teachers.
The bank branch will be the first to operate within a Prince George’s school. The Parkdale branch will also be the first full-service branch of a Capital One Bank in a Maryland high school; the bank also operates student-run branches in schools in New York and New Jersey.
Elsewhere in Maryland, a branch of the Maryland Employee Credit Union opened at National Academy Foundation High School in Baltimore in 2008, and First Financial Federal Credit Union operates branches in four schools in Baltimore County, according to the banks’ Web sites.
“It’s a big deal,” said Bladimir Martinez, 16, of Riverdale, one of the students who will participate in the Parkdale program. “The experience that I’m going to acquire during the program is going to be great. My resume [is] going to look great . . . who knows where this could take us.”
This summer, officials are converting a former teacher’s lounge into a bank branch, complete with counters, desks and a vault, Principal Cheryl Logan said. The bank will be open about three hours per day — around student lunch periods on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — during which an experienced bank manager will supervise the branch, Logan said.
About 40 students applied for the positions, submitting resumes and essays to show their qualifications, along with undergoing multiple interviews and a drug test. The 10 students, who will be paid $12 per hour, are spending the summer training in pairs at local Capital One branches, Logan said.
The professional experience offered by the program can boost students’ confidence in their abilities and get them focused on their futures, Logan said.
“For some of them, it’s going to change their life,” she said.
The program is “a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn about financial planning and how to use this tool to envision their future goals,” William R. Hite Jr., county schools superintendent, said in a statement.
Capital One’s first student-run branch opened in New York in 2007. The next year, a student-run branch set up shop in Newark, N.J., and another opened in New York in 2009. Each branch has hundreds of accounts, said Stacey Cooper, vice president of community development banking for Capital One.
Parkdale was an ideal location for a student-run branch because several Capital One branches exist nearby from which the students can draw training and support, Cooper said.
The program’s goals are to promote smart saving habits among students and offer professional training and work experience to promising students whose academic records might not stand out, Cooper said.
“We’re not looking for valedictorians; we’re not looking for straight-A students; we’re looking for students the program can leverage change in,” Cooper said.
Thus far, all of the about 100 student bankers who have participated in the program have graduated high school and about 90 percent have gone to college, Cooper said. Ten have gone on to work as part-time tellers at Capital One branches, with nine of those also attending college, said Shelley Solheim, Capital One spokeswoman.
After their first week of training, Parkdale’s tellers-in-training spoke excitedly about the program, but admitted that they found their new responsibilities a little intimidating.
Jade Forde, 16, of Riverdale, who plans to go to college to study social work, said learning to manage her money could help keep her out of debt during college.
Some said they thought that the program already has shown results.
“I can teach my parents more about banking,” said B.J. Yates, 17, of Lanham. “I probably know more about banking than them already.”
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