Districtwide stock market game competition begins as result of CTE financial literacy initiative

Students in Career and Financial Management (CFM) classes throughout the Mount Vernon City School District are getting started on an ongoing trading competition designed to help them understand the stock market. Students will work in groups to manage a virtual $100,000 portfolio, competing against classes in schools across the District. Students began the competition on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. 

Career and Financial Management is a Career and Technical Education (CTE) course that is available for high school and middle school students in the District, so each class will be competing against students from various grade levels. 

A new initiative in CTE has been to instill financial literacy in students District-wide. To meet this goal, Career and Financial Management teachers have been meeting in a professional learning community (PLC) every month. 

“The CTE Stock Market Challenge is a great opportunity to infuse real-world financial literacy skills across the District in a way that is fun, engaging and highly relevant for students to build core competencies that will pay dividends for a lifetime,” said Brian Simmons, Director of CTE. “It's also really cool that middle school students get to compete against high school students!”

Caterina DiPaola, Italian and CFM teacher at Graham School, introduced the competition in the PLC meetings as a way to unify CFM classes District–wide and teach financial responsibility. The winning school will receive a trophy, and the winning class will be rewarded with a pizza party

“I wanted to unify the District and the schools within the District by showing students that what they’re learning throughout the school year – math, social studies, technology, world languages – can all be encompassed within the stock market,” said Ms. DiPaola. “My children finished learning about balancing checkbooks and what it means to be financially responsible. They are a very competitive and intelligent bunch, so we figured ‘what a way to unify Mount Vernon by doing the Stock Market Game sponsored through NASDAQ.’ The vision was to unify the schools and show students that what they’re learning within school is out in the real world.” 

Ms. DiPaola began the lesson by opening a discussion about stocks. She showed examples of the stock prices of a few well-known companies and asked students what they knew about the market. After some discussion, she rang a bell, and trading began.

The competition is held on stockmarketgame.org, which is sponsored by the NASDAQ stock market exchange. All stocks in the game are real stocks available through NASDAQ, so students are getting practical experience buying and selling stocks through this simulation.

Students will build a portfolio consisting of stocks, mutual funds and bonds. Ms. DiPaola’s class consists of several teams that include a director, head researcher, portfolio coordinator, data entry coordinator and lead reporter. Each student will get some experience in every aspect of trading, but the roles allow students to specialize in certain elements of the stock market. 

Students are excited to dive into the project for a chance to compete with other students and learn skills that will help them well into their futures.
 
“In CFM, we learn about business strategies, and we do presentations that would help us continue in life and be a proper business woman or business man,” said Jaden Satchell, seventh-grade student at Graham. “We have been going over a few things that would relate to the stock market. I think that Ms. DiPaola really is a great teacher. I’m excited to learn more and try to win. I have an eye on a stock, I think it’s called NVIDIA. I think it’s a great stock. I hope to learn how to coordinate stuff like this with money and how to manage money properly.” 

Each class will keep track of their portfolios, and the leaderboard will be regularly updated as the competition progresses. 

Read more about Graham School's Career and Financial Management class here!