JA BizTown Springs Back to Business after Pandemic Shutdown
Teachers across Southeast Louisiana were excited to bring their students back to JA BizTown during the 2022-2023 school year. After remaining closed to students during the height of the Covid Pandemic, this school year JA BizTown welcomed back 25 schools to our simulated city where 4th, 5th, and 6th graders were given the opportunity to operate businesses such as Capital One, Palmisano, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, Ochsner Health, Chick-fil-A, and City Hall, sponsored by the Oscar J. Tolmas Charitable Trust. This year, JA also adapted JA BizTown to bring career awareness and skills to special needs students from Opportunities Academy, a Collegiate Academies' rigorous, full-day program for college-aged students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
For Sandee Paul of St. Philip Neri, JA BizTown is important because “it teaches skills that my students can use in the real world. They love when they make the connection from what they are learning to something they have heard their parents talk about.” Paul, who has been using JA BizTown in her classroom for about 10 years, says “I would recommend JA BizTown to anyone” because it teaches “life skills in simple lessons that the kids really love.” She says she loves “when I hear one of my students say that the job they had was so hard, and they wonder if it is really that hard in real life.” She also recalls that “one of the first years we brought our students, my partner teacher and I stood in the corner watching, and we realized that some of
our students could not figure out how to work the big blue mailbox. So, the next year, we added a section about writing letters and how to mail them.” The other lesson that Paul says makes a huge impact is having people come in and give her students job interviews: “They get so nervous, but in the end, I always hear how much fun they had. Everyone loves it; every year I hear that the JA BizTown trip is their favorite. Students enjoy visiting BizTown, and I am always asked can we go back.”
JA BizTown consists of a comprehensive in-class curriculum that teaches valuable life skills that are at the core of all JA programming. Connecting the dots between what children learn in school and how it’s applied in the real world isn’t that simple. That’s why we created JA BizTown, an engaging, hands-on program that introduces young people to economic concepts, workplace skills, and personal and business finances in a student-sized town built just for them. In partnership with schools throughout Southeast Louisiana, this one-of-a-kind program helps students learn how an economy functions, their role as both workers and consumers, and what it’s like to be contributing members of society for a day – all with the assumed responsibilities of an adult. Leading up to their experience working in JA BizTown, students take part in 14 hours of classroom instruction where they work together to create business plans, calculate operating costs, design a marketing campaign, apply for jobs, vote for city officials, and explore careers. Then, they put their skills to work by becoming employees for a day at JA BizTown – a learning facility that features recognizable, local businesses and industries.
JA is currently seeking new JA BizTown shop sponsors. If you would like to sponsor a shop and expand your brand’s exposure while supporting economic education, please contact Kelly Wilson at kelly@jagno.org