Planning Rationale
Business pathways prepare students to study business or finance in college, give them a jump on career planning, and teach them the fundamentals of running a successful business. Students participate in competitive events through Business Professionals of America (BPA) and Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).
Topics covered in the Business pathways include financial planning, banking, insurance, international finance, entrepreneurship, marketing, and accounting.
Pathways
Accounting
Students in the Accounting pathway learn the fundamentals of maintaining business records, preparing financial statements, and managing money. The accounting classes students take will enable them to understand the flow of business, analyze business transactions, recognize and use forms and reports, and properly record transactions.
Entrepreneurship
The Entrepreneurship pathway teaches students important career-ready skills in the context of building a business plan and establishing, organizing, and managing a small business. Entrepreneurship classes help students to understand basic business and economic principles, management theories, marketing concepts, and the role of law in business. Class projects include creating business plans and developing mock businesses.
At the end of the program, students have a chance to compete for seed capital through a series of business plan competitions from the level of their classroom to Regionals and Network for Teacher Entrepreneurship's (NFTE) certification national competitions.
Layout
Classrooms use VE (Virtual Enterprises International) for their setup. VE turns the classrooms into actual businesses with various departments (Administration, HR, Marketing, Accounting, Sales, etc.) Flexibility necessary to create the different departments may be achieved by furniture and the use of laptops/tablets in lieu of the traditional hardwired computers and rows of desks.