Demopolis High readying for Finance and Insurance Academy
The Class of 2017 will be the first to reap the benefits of a program being piloted at Demopolis High School: the Demopolis High School Academy of Finance and Insurance.
“Right now we are in our year of planning and next year we will start this academy. I want parents to know what we’ve got going on here at the school and encourage their students to sign up for it,” Kelly Gandy, who oversees the program at DHS, said. “Students are assigned to take a curriculum, a certain set of classes in order to be in this academy. They’ll do a small internship that could last from two weeks and up or it could be worked in with their job.”
The initiative will offer interested students the opportunity to take a minimum of five finance and insurance classes over a three-year period in order to be listed as a graduate of the academy. All participating students will be required to take Insurance as a course.
“They are supposed to have more of an enrichment opportunity with these classes such as certain field trips, certain guest speakers. It is called work-based learning. That is where our advisory board comes in to help support those types of things,” Gandy said. “(The National Academy Foundation) wants us to make sure that they feel special and that we’re catering to their individual needs.”
Courses available to students will include Applied Finance, Business Economics, Entrepreneurship, Ethics in Business, Financial Planning, Insurance, Principles of Accounting and Managerial Accounting.
The academy will be available first to this year’s freshmen, the Class of 2017. The designed curriculum also works in conjunction with other academic opportunities such as the school’s dual enrollment and pre-nursing courses.
“We’ve made sure this fits in their schedule with other areas they want to do. This works with dual enrollment. This still works with the medical stuff,” Gandy said. “These are business classes that can better prepare (students) even in the nursing field. This isn’t necessarily for students who want to be a finance or insurance major.”
While the academy has yet to officially launch, approximately 50 freshmen have already signed up to take part in the initiative and begun mapping out their academic strategies.
“We’ve had about 50 students sign up and they’ve sat down and created their ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grade plan,” Gandy said. “We’re going to present them with a special seal at graduation as well as with a stole. We want them to stand out for what they’ve accomplished by going through this curriculum and this academy.”
The Demopolis High School Academy of Finance and Insurance functions under the National Academy Foundation as well as its own independent advisory board.
“Jay Reynolds serves as the chairman of our board. We have a representative from every insurance agency in town, every financial institution in town, plus higher education with Shelton State Community College and UWA. We have community representatives like Chuck Smith, Morgan Allen, Brenda Tuck and Rob Pearson,” Gandy said.
According to NAF, students in finance and insurance academies have a 97 percent graduation rate and 52 percent of those graduates earn bachelor’s degrees in four years as compared to the 32 percent that accomplish the feat nationally.
The academy has already received some funding in the form of a grant that was used to purchase unique technologies for academy students. The academy also recently accepted a donation from Trustmark Bank that will be earmarked for a scholarship that will go to an academy graduate in the Class of 2017.