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Alliant CU and NuMark have put together ideal partnerships with their local school districts to instruct middle school and high school students about being financially responsible.
 Starting in September 2005, volunteers from Alliant CU began teaching Operation Hope’s Banking on Our Future to 8th grade students in three classrooms at Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines, which is part of Community Consolidated School District 62. This school district serves a diverse transitional community in the suburbs immediately adjacent to Chicago. Over the years, Des Plaines has become a racially diverse and economically stratified community with the "unbanked" comprising a large portion of the population.
Following the successful introduction of the Banking on Our Future to 8th graders at Algonquin Middle School, the program was expanded to include the other middle school in the district, Chippewa. By the end of the school year, nearly 700 students participated in the program. Alliant CU and School District 62 plan to continue this program in the future for all the 8th grade students in the district.
This year, NuMark CU brought Operation Hope financial education classes to all three public high schools in Plainfield. Freshman and sophomores who enroll in an Introduction to Business class as an elective are taught four modules created by Operation Hope: the Power of Credit, the Basics of Banking and Budgeting, Savings and Checking, and Basic Investments. During the 2005-2006 school year, NuMark staff members presented the curriculum to 435 students who were enrolled in 14 classes.
“This program is great and necessary,” said Pat Ruzicka, a teacher at Plainfield High School. “It is a good idea to hear from people in the ‘real world.’ Students pay attention to what is being said, even if we have studied the subject, Operation Hope is a great reinforcement. The materials are excellent.”
At the end of the school year, NuMark CU received approval to bring the Illinois State Treasurer’s “Bank at School” program into one of the high schools as a pilot program. Accounting class students will serve as tellers while marketing and advertising students will design promotional flyers for the program.
For the past five years, NuMark has worked with Laraway Grade School to bring the Bank at School program to students. Bank at School is a powerful education program that introduces the world of money and banking through in-class lessons and real-world experience of opening a savings account and regularly depositing money. Academically-excelled students are selected by the school to serve as tellers on deposit days when the grade schoolers are encouraged to add funds to their savings accounts. The student tellers undergo a day of training at NuMark where they are taught the importance of savings and secrecy, the procedures for opening and depositing into accounts, and the credit union philosophy.
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