A penny saved: Students learn about saving money during Financial Literacy Month

Every Thursday morning during the school year, a trio of fifth-grade students opens the Eagle Branch for their peers to deposit money. It’s one way Garden County Elementary students are learning financial literacy.

Emily Russell, the assistant principal at Garden County Elementary, said students as young as kindergarten-aged will bring in money to save.

“Sometimes they'll bring in their tooth fairy money, or they'll just bring in change they found or they got for Easter,” Russell said. “We have quite a bit of students who deposit money.”

April is Financial Literacy Month. Schools across Nebraska, including Garden County in Oshkosh, have been putting more of a focus on financial literacy through partnerships with local banks to create in-school savings programs. Jennifer Davidson, president of the Nebraska Council on Economic Education, said the initiative started in 2002 and has grown to 90 school-bank partnerships since then.

“I get to work with the best teachers across the state of Nebraska, and our bankers across the state are just so wonderful,” Davidson said. “They're really in it for the right reasons. They're really about the education and wanting to do something for their community, and it is just such a joy to get to do this work day-in and day-out.”

According to research Davidson conducted on the program, students who participated were more likely to have their own checking accounts, and were more likely to save regularly and at higher amounts.

“If we can get them early and set up this good financial behavior early on, and then they keep it well into their teenage years and adulthood and continue saving, we really change the trajectory of their financial futures,” Davidson said.

Each school partners with a local bank for the program. At Garden County Elementary, the school has one bank account with Nebraska State Bank. Then, the school and bank keep track of what each student deposits. Instead of accruing interest, students get a prize like a treat or small toy for each time they deposit.

At the end of their fifth-grade year, Russell said students get a check with what they deposited during their time at the elementary school.

“We know a lot of students, lot of young kids, as soon as they get money in their hands, the first thing they want to do is go spend it, and usually on candy or something like that,” Russell said. “So what we do is we tell them the importance of what you can do if you save it.”

Denise Callihan, who works in operations at Nebraska State Bank in Oshkosh, said partnering with the school was another way to get involved in the community and help kids learn about saving.

“For them to realize that even if you save $1 or $2 or $3, it does add up in the end,” Callihan said. “A lot of people think, ‘Oh, $1 is not worth much,’ but if you keep saving $1, it is worth more to them.”

Once students reach fifth grade, they can also apply to be a teller for the school’s branch. Interested students go through a basic application process, show off their math skills and partake in an interview.

Hannah Rockafellow, who also works in operations at Nebraska State Bank, said the tellers get to learn responsibility.

“They have to take the money from the students who are depositing,” Rockafellow said. “They write, essentially it's a deposit slip that they're writing out for each student. Then, they're balancing their checkbook to make sure that their balance follows what we have listed at the bank in our spreadsheet.”

Rockafellow added that all the students who participate get to learn about saving.

“It just brings a perspective to the students for them to start thinking about college, saving for their first car,” Rockafellow said. “Some students have in mind that they want to buy a drone with their savings from the Eagle Branch, so just to get them starting to think about money and truly saving it for their future.”