Press release
Reality Store is a career based event that is geared towards Middle School through High School. The event is conducted through the Guidance Department and ran by Tiffany Roush, the 7-9 School Counselor.
The Reality Store gives students an important glimpse of the future by teaching the financial balance and challenges they will face as adults. It helps the students become aware of the need to set financial goals and make wise career and education choices.
Students are assigned a career, are the sole providers for their families and may have anywhere between 0-5 children. The careers are divided up between 16 different career clusters. The students will learn about different monthly expenses such as: tax deductions, retirement, insurance, housing, health care, child care cost, transportation, groceries, utilities, etc. These expenses are set up as booths in which community partnership’s volunteered to work at. Once a student receives their occupation/career, they will be provided a check and check ledgers. They are required to visit each “booth” and deduct their amounts from their checking account. The students can choose options at each booth, ranging from spending the bare minimum amount of money to spending the highest.
Throughout the event, we had Jo Stahl, the city police monitoring our students behavior and writing out tickets for “speeding, OVI, driving without insurance, etc. She was able to bring in the beer goggles to show kids what it is like to be intoxicated and provide sobriety test. If a student received a ticket, they were required to pay their ticket to Judge Solis (Chris Solis, Wynford Junior High Principal).
Prior to the event, the students received a “pre-day”, where they learned about the basic fundamentals of the event and completed a worksheet on “envisioning their live at 25 years old”. This event is put on once a year in the Spring for our 8th grade students.
Below is the list of Wynford Eigth Grade Reality Store Partnerships: Jo Stahl (Bucyrus Police Officer), Crystal Marks (Wynford School Nurse), Michelle Studer (Customer Service Manager at First Federal Community Bank), Greg Schiefer (Schiefer Insurance), Tina Wilson (Community Outreach Marketing at Directions Credit Union in Mansfield), Austin Baker (Community Outreach Marketing at Directions Credit Union in Mansfield), Michael Robinson (Store Manager at Bucyrus Kroger), Melissa Oberlander (Financial Advisor at Prudential Insurance), Morgan Salisbury (Business Developer at Mathews Chevrolet), Robert Ratliff (Crawford County Law Director), Marcia Baker (Mortgage Loan Originator at Firelands Credit Union), Michelle King (AVP Bucyrus Marketing at Firelands Credit Union), Alan Basinger (Retired Insurance), Barbara Scott (Children’s Librarian at Bucyrus Public Library), Tami Tima (Title Insurance Agent at Old Crawford Land Title Agency, LTD), Terri Brewington (Realtor at Ark Realty), David Wolfe (Youth & Family Minister at Good Hope Lutheran Church).