Brooklyn high school students learn financial literacy with real money

Through an extracurricular program at his high school in February 2021, Frederick received $200 to invest in the market. In just 21 months, he returned more than 200% of his initial investment, despite a general market downturn during this period, the agency reports. Brooklyn paper.

“I got a good income,” Frederick remarked. A young man dresses like a successful investor. He wears a suit and bow tie to his high school, located in the Cypress Hills neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Students at four Brooklyn Uncommon High Schools can attend extracurricular activities after school. Known as High School 2.0, this free program offers a variety of classes. The choices here range from coding to cooking, from dancing to live sports. Classes are taught by experts in their fields. They should encourage students to pursue their hobbies or discover new ones.

These high schools are part of the network Uncommon Schools, which operates 24 schools in Brooklyn, Rochester, Boston, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey.

For the financial education program, Uncommon brought in Dan LaSalle. He runs a non-profit organization called Niche Clinic. She teaches high school students about stocks, bonds, credit cards, and how to save and invest for the future. It also provides money that students can invest in the stock market.

On the subject: Legal, financial and other help: a list of useful resources in New York

Niche Clinic originated in Philadelphia, where LaSalle taught a personal finance class at Olney Charter High School.

He had the idea to offer students real money to invest in the market. His non-profit organization, which receives funding from various foundations, schools and partner non-profit organizations, now offers the program to 800 students in 14 schools and non-profit organizations.

The program was a perfect fit for Frederic, who has always been passionate about finance. As a middle school student, he started watching The Graham Stefan Show on YouTube. And so I became interested in the intricacies of real estate. This inspired him to obtain a commercial property license.

He created a financial club to focus more on understanding the stock market and other investments to create wealth.

“I am very, very passionate about finance and have noticed that there is a lack of financial education in the country,” Frederick explained. “That’s what I thought was something to watch out for. Therefore, I decided to create a financial club to create an environment where young people can learn about the importance of finance and use this understanding to make healthy financial decisions.”

LaSalle gave $800 to the Leadership Charter Financial Club, which ran a stock market competition and identified four club members. They each received $200 real money to invest in the market.

Of course, Frederic became one of the winners of the competition.

Frederic said that he is already pretty good at investing because he started running his own brokerage account when he was 13 years old.

“To navigate the world, you need to have an understanding of how finance works,” said Frederick. “Finance is like a blueprint. And you can use it to build your life the way you want.”

The financial club he founded holds meetings every two weeks with a guest lecturer. This year the club has already invited eight guests. Their last guest worked for a hedge fund.

“When you think about it, anyone can go online and find something about finance,” he said. “But I like to invite guests who work in the financial industry to tell us about the importance of finance in their niche.”

Frederick admitted that one of the tips he followed was to have a mentor. A young businessman met his future mentor's wife at a financial conference.

“We started talking and I told her about my passion for finance,” he said. – In the end, we talked for 30 minutes, after which she said that her husband likes to mentor young guys interested in finance. She arranged the meeting and her husband became my mentor.”

Frederick studied well at school. He has attended several AP courses including AP Chemistry, AP English, AP US History, and is currently taking an AP Statistics course.

He said he plans to take a gap year and go into commercial real estate during that time in hopes of making some money before going to college.

“I plan to go to college, especially because of the networking opportunities,” he admitted.