Junior Achievement City

The total highlight of the school year for 5th grade is Junior Achievement City.  The program starts in early spring when parents come in once a week and teach the kids lessons about economy, commerce, business, banking, etc.  Then, they choose 3 jobs they would like to have during the full day JA City event, and they have mock job interviews with volunteers in the community for those positions.  There were jobs anywhere from CEO, CFO, Sales Managers and on-air tv hosts to meter readers and bank tellers.  They had to fill out job applications, come to school fully dressed up and interview with people they didn't know.  One of the interviewers was the former CEO of IHC himself.  Pretty legit stuff.

All of this was gearing them up for their day at JA City, an amazing facility downtown that looks like a mini city.  There were store fronts for real local businesses, and the kids ran the city for the day.

There was a mayor ...


a city attorney and town treasurer ….




banks where the kids deposited their paychecks and funded their business loans ….






a tv station which really did broadcast over tv's around the city, complete with anchors and a camera man ….






utility workers …


a Maverick store to buy treats ….


a town DJ, who decided what music would play during the day and would also read commercials for the various business that the kids wrote themselves ….


medical research company lab workers …


health insurance companies ….


and even a School District, which is where Paige acted as Superintendent for the day.




The kids spent the day learning how to do their jobs, run their businesses, trying to sell their stuff to other kids, learning how to use debit cards and checks, getting interviewed on tv to promote their businesses, learning how to work with other employees …. It was such a fun, exhausting day.  It's a lot of work pretending to be adults!

RC Willey even had "hot dogs and a soda" to entice people to come into their store. :)


They had to create invoices for anyone using their services, and the CFO's had to write checks to pay their bills.


Such a fantastic program! And an amazing opportunity for these 5th graders to learn how to work in the "real" world.


Loved being a part of it!