News : VSHS begins Financial Literacy program with help from FSB

Teachers at Vinton-Shellsburg High School are partnering with Farmers Savings Bank & Trust to provide 11th-12th graders a financial literacy program. The program, called Project Financial Literacy is designed to promote financial literacy education by providing high schools with resources to measure and improve their financial literacy curriculum. The program offers schools an assessment tool to measure their curriculum against the 21st Century Skills framework of the Iowa Core Curriculum.

“The work our teachers are doing to equip students with a financial literacy education is critical to these students’ future success, and to the economic success of our community,” said Darlys Hulme, President at Farmers Savings Bank & Trust. “Our bank commends our school’s teachers on their efforts and we are excited to be able to offer them this tool to help them teach financial literacy, measure their progress, and make improvements based on that measurement.”

“We appreciate the support of Farmers Savings Bank & Trust to make this project possible,” said Matt Kingsbury, High School Principal. “The data our school will gain from this tool will be extremely valuable in providing financial literacy curriculum that meets the needs of our students and communities today and in the future.”

With this program, students will take an online assessment to measure their knowledge in the areas of achieving financial goals, managing money effectively, debt decision-making, risk management, investment and asset building, and legal and ethical financial behavior. The school will be able to use data from that assessment to build their financial literacy programs and curriculum.

In addition, by participating in this program, Vinton-Shellsburg will be eligible for a mix of merit-based and random drawings for one of ten $1,000 scholarships sponsored by the Iowa Bankers Association. The scholarship is designed to help schools further improve their financial literacy programs or provide scholarships to its students. Scholarship award recipients will be announced in early March 2015.

Farmers Savings Bank & Trust is an independent community bank with $175,000,000 in assets.