Project Description:
The Triton Regional School District's 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) program offers project-based learning in the form of entrepreneurial enrichment to engage students in the real life application of academic content in Mathematics and English Language Arts. Students participate in cooperative work groups that simulate organized business teams. Participating students own and operate their own businesses including a bakery and catalog sales business at the elementary level. The middle school level businesses include a café, magazine, bookstore and pottery store.
The culmination of this entrepreneurial enrichment is a Corporate Dinner at the end of the school year. Students present the "State of their Businesses" using power point to family members, teachers and administrators. A sit down dinner follows the student presentation.
This promising practices report will focus on the Sweet Shoppe Bakery and Viking Café.
Our entrepreneurship program specifically targets math communication, reasoning and problem solving. Students are continually exposed to these academic outcomes through their business operations. The bakery and café students must increase recipes, calculate the cost of the product, order supplies, decide upon a price for a reasonable profit, predict and track profits, graph and chart sales, etc.
All businesses incorporate verbal and written communication skill building. Specifically, students write an essay stating why they would make a good business owner and employee. They develop a written "business pla"n as well as their own print and video advertisements for marketing purposes. They converse with their customer base through classroom presentations and surveys.
Students sell their own baked goods to teachers, students and staff after school. The elementary school has an art gallery café as well as mobile carts that enable students to deliver the product to customers in the classroom. The middle school has a lobby café & bookstore as well as mobile carts.
Students rotate through teams of menu selection & design, supply ordering, baking and selling and calculating profit. Students make the "business decisions" with minimum guidance from instructors.
Sample lesson plans:
  | Baking Lesson |
| | Cookie Jars |
Needed materials and costs:
Materials: Needed material include baking supplies & utensils, computers & software, a working kitchen, rolling carts, cash register, paper products, video camera, school supplies, cleaning supplies, utilities, etc. The Café & Sweet Shoppe use the school kitchens and all their equipment - none were purchased with grant funds.
Start up costs: The amount would depend on the number and rate of pay for instructors (Triton teachers earn $30.00 per hour in after school programs, planning hours, and staff development), the length of programming (our program runs for 32 weeks), equipment (our school owns and shares) as well as the amount of baking/selling supplies needed.
On-going costs: replenishing baking supplies, instructor salaries, Corporate Dinner celebration, supplies, etc.
How do you know this practice is having a positive impact on students?
Our SAYO data and analysis have shown a steady rate of student improvement at the end of programming. ESE site visits and observations have provided positive feedback, and the program has presented replicable components at MA 21st CCLC workshops. ESE has recommended that we document our model and curriculum and we are in the process of packaging them for retail sale.
What factors do you think have contributed most to the success of this program?
Ongoing support, training and guidance from Karyl Resnick, ESE ASOST Coordinator, and other ESE staff has been critical to our continuous improvement and measured success. In addition, the following elements have significantly contributed:
- Teacher / staff recruitment and retention
- Teacher / staff support from program coordinator
- Program coordination support person at sites
- Inclusive planning of curriculum, activities and ideas with program teachers and staff, classroom teachers and program coordinator
- Daily and easily accessible communication (email) with site coordinators and after-school teachers and staff
- Small student / staff ratio
- Appropriate space within the schools
- Administrative support from superintendent on down
- Knowing and understanding teachers' strengths and matching to program strengths
- If you write the grant yourself-you can follow and expand your own vision of the program
- High interest activities for the participants
- Ongoing parent communication and engagement
- Flexibility
What suggestions do you have for others regarding potential improvements?
I think an added asset would be to create a link between the middle school 21st CCLC program and the Triton High School student-run School Store in the lobby. This has been a "School-to-Career" program staple for a number of years at the high school. Our 21st Century program offers students an earlier, more involved experience and the school store at the high school level would be a natural link. A mentor project could be easily developed with middle and high school students. The benefits would be rewarding and numerous.
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