BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Battle Creek Central High School students will soon have an opportunity to learn about banking and financial literacy while gaining real-world work experience inside their own school.
Battle Creek Public Schools is partnering with Marshall Community Credit Union to open a student-run credit union branch at Battle Creek Central High School. The branch is expected to open Sept. 10.
Students selected as interns will be paid MCCU employees and receive training before working at the branch.
“They do training over the summer. They learn all of the ins and outs of banking regulations, rules, how to handle cash appropriately, and we have them come into the school and operate the credit union,” said Laura Santos, MCCU community and youth engagement manager.
Santos knows firsthand where that experience can lead.
“I got my start with the credit union as a student teller,” Santos said. “I was the first student teller that they had.”
Santos said she stayed with the credit union through college before eventually leaving for about five years and later returning to MCCU. She now oversees the same program that helped launch her career.
“I got to come and run the program that originally hired me,” Santos said.
At Battle Creek Central, the student interns will be able to help with services including deposits, withdrawals, transfers and loan payments. They will also help with online banking and answer financial questions.
The partnership builds on MCCU's existing financial education work at Battle Creek Central. Santos said the credit union has held financial presentations and a Financial Reality Fair for the school's sophomore class for the past three years.
The new branch also provides another work-based learning opportunity for students in the school's Business, Engineering and Industrial Technology Academy.
“Just having our community partners come in, interact with our students, so again they get those real-world experiences, is just priceless,” BEIT Academy Principal Blake Nordman said.
Nordman said the partnership comes as Michigan requires financial literacy education for high school students and gives students an opportunity to apply those lessons in a real-world setting.
School leaders say the program could also address challenges some Battle Creek Central graduates have experienced after leaving high school.
Executive Principal Tyler Gilland said feedback from former students showed some were arriving at college without experience navigating a financial institution. That left some learning for the first time how to navigate financial aid packages, financial incentives and where that money goes.
“We really felt like it's our responsibility as a part of that college and career readiness to ensure that students, when they leave here, have access to both financial literacy information, but also the actual bank account or credit union accounts that can help set them up for success when they leave our school,” Gilland said.
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