Students in West Virginia will be required to complete a course in personal finance during their junior or senior year after a policy change approved Tuesday by the state Board of Education.
During a 9 a.m. meeting, the board approved an amendment to Policy 2510 to include the requirement for a full credit in personal finance. The change would take effect in July and would start with the 2024-25 incoming freshmen class.
Starting with that class, students would be required to take a class in personal finance during their junior or senior years.
The change was mandated by the West Virginia Legislature with the approval of House Bill 3113 in 2023. The bill required only a half-credit in personal finance, but director of student enrichment Joey Wiseman said that wasn’t compatible with many county policies.
“A lot of our counties don’t do half-credits,†Wiseman said. “They don’t have the ability to know how it will play with scholarships and things like that — grade point averages. So they wanted a full credit.â€
Already offered with vo-tech programs
Career and technical education students already take a course in personal finance, Wiseman said. The amended policy expands that instruction to all students.
“Every student, before they graduate, will now have a CTE course in personal finance,†he said.
As a result of the modification, students will now need a minimum of 23 credits to graduate, instead of 22.
“Keep in mind, just a few years ago, we had 24 credits,†Wiseman said.
He said there are only 11 counties that require the minimum of 22 credits to graduate, with most having electives that increase the number of credits needed.
“Two counties have 28 required credits, and it goes down from there,†he said.
In addition to the CTE course, for the past two decades, personal finance has been a required portion of civics classes in West Virginia, Wiseman said. As a result, there should be adequate personnel to provide instruction to all students, he said.
Additionally, administrators have developed a unified set of standards for the instruction, Wiseman said.
“It’s the same all the way across,†he said, “and it’s a very rigorous set of standards.â€
‘I’m just not convinced that they need the whole year’
Board member Debra Sullivan expressed concern about requiring a full credit.
Debra K. Sullivan
“I definitely believe that our students need a background in personal finance,†Sullivan said. “I’m just not convinced that they need the whole year. And integrating into something else — like civics — seemed to be a good way to do it.â€
Wiseman noted that, while the standards meet the requirement for a full credit, individual schools will have flexibility in how they schedule the instruction.
“It’s still up to the principal and a team of teachers to determine that time,†Wiseman said. “If they have a way to figure that out and they don’t feel they need that much time, they can build that into their schedule any way they want.â€
Sullivan questioned why personal finance instruction should be limited only to juniors and seniors, when many freshmen and sophomores could benefit from it, as well.
“I don’t know why prohibiting ninth- and 10th-graders from taking a personal finance course is important,†she said. “I think that ninth- and 10th-graders should be allowed to take this personal finance course. Why hold it off till you’re a junior or senior?â€
Wiseman noted that counties have the ability to request a waiver for that requirement.
“I would encourage counties to ask for that waiver,†Sullivan said.
Editor's Note: This article has been edited to correct the attribution of comments to board member Debra Sullivan.
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