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All Virginia high school students, beginning with the 2011 incoming freshman class are required to pass economics and personal finance in order to graduate. The requirement doesn’t apply to current sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Financial professionals in the Richmond region said the timing is perfect to incorporate financial literacy into a school’s curriculum. America is in the midst of economic doldrums and faces a trillion-dollar deficit.

Jane Watkins, president and CEO of the Virginia Credit Union, said the best way for people to make good financial choices is to arm them with good education.

Offering teenagers, who are on the cusp of entering college or the workforce, the opportunity to learn financial literacy is a worthwhile endeavor, financial experts say.

“We don’t want to have students leaving high school, entering the ‘real world’ and needing to function effectively in our global economy, but not having a clue what that means,” said Sarah Finley, executive director of the Virginia Council on Economic Education.

School officials haven’t always been receptive to mandates placed on them by the General Assembly, especially when funding doesn’t accompany them.

Richmond School Board member Kimberly Gray said there can be push back from school divisions when unfunded requirements are passed down to localities. Systems must develop curriculum and hire or train teachers to teach the new subject, she said.

But, in this case, she said, the benefits of financial literacy are priceless.

“In the wake of the economic downturn, it is critical for our kids to know how to make the best choices when it comes to finances,” said Gray, who used to work as a bank teller. “A lot of those students don’t understand … the difference between a credit card and a debit card.”

To prepare for the new course, nearly 600 teachers statewide have taken part in economics and personal finance learning seminars offered by the Virginia Council on Economic Education through university centers for economic education across the state.

Suzanne Gallagher, director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Economic Education, has led three seminars in economics and two in personal finance. The classes, held eight hours a day for five or six days, present the material mostly through hands-on simulations and guest speakers.

Participating teachers receive at least 40 instructional hours and take home resources and creative lessons to help them impart the knowledge and skills to their own students.

“We really believe that when people experience something, they’ll remember it,” Gallagher said. “We do a lot of simulations because we want to make the concepts real. Also, these are simulations the teachers can use with their own students.”

Upon completion, teachers receive many resources, including “Virtual Economics,” a CD that includes more than 1,200 lessons they can use in the classroom. The Richmond area’s four largest school divisions — Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover counties and the city of Richmond — are using their own individual touches to implement the courses.

Chesterfield and Henrico, for example, will integrate the economic and personal finance course into their high schools for the 2012-13 academic years. However, an online option is available to students without interfering with other subjects.

“Online courses provide students flexibility and will allow them to pursue their usual elective courses, such as physical education, music and art,” said Henrico School Board Chairman Lamont Bagby, a former high school business teacher.

Students taking financial literacy will learn — among the 18 Standards of Learning — about the role of government in the economy, but also how to budget living and leisure expenses and how a credit card can affect a personal finance plan.