From Piggy Banks to Portfolios: How Severn Empowers Financially Savvy Students

Through a comprehensive program that includes classes, clubs, competitions, special projects, field trips, and more, Severn ensures that Admirals have every opportunity to gain a solid foundation in managing financial matters.

Financial literacy at Severn begins in the Lower School.

One early example is the second-grade entrepreneurship unit, where students are challenged to work up their own business plan. They develop a product or service and identify their customers, costs, expected profits, and more. To conclude this lesson, the entire class goes on a field trip to the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

One of the newer and more impactful initiatives in this realm is Severn Supplies, a student-run school store that operates once a week. Organized and staffed by fifth-grade students, the store offers general supplies like pencils and erasers for sale to Lower School students. At the end of the year, proceeds from Severn Supplies are donated to charity.

Students form committees to manage the various tasks associated with running the store, including a buying team, a marketing team, and a philanthropy team.

“As a teacher, this is the most impactful thing I’ve ever done,” said Stacy Shaener, advisor to the project and the Lower School math specialist.

Shaener acknowledged that in the digital age children no longer regularly handle physical money as often, and as a result, identifying coins can be a real challenge. By managing Severn Supplies, students are learning what things cost, how to price them to turn a profit, and how to make change, since they accept cash only.

The philanthropy team selected The Recess Project as the beneficiary and in a full-circle moment, those students attended a board meeting via Zoom, where they were able to hear for themselves how the donation will be used and what it meant to the organization. The Recess Project transforms public school playgrounds into accessible and inclusive spaces for students with disabilities by upgrading them with accessible playground pieces.

In the Upper School, the sky’s the limit when it comes to opportunities to increase one’s financial savvy. The entry-level classroom option is Financial Algebra I, an elective available to ninth- and tenth-graders that offers an online game reminiscent of The Game of Life. Students project out 20 years from graduation from high school and progress through the game one week at a time. They make life decisions about college and student loans, consider what type of lifestyle they want to maintain, and look at what it costs to get married and have children.

They also do a deep dive into taxes. Each student must complete a 1040 form and calculate the tax based on their projected income. Insurance and all its various types that need to be factored into a budget are also introduced to students during the course.

“The entire point is to boost their financial literacy,” said Upper School Mathematics Chair Julien Meyer, who teaches this course and another elective. “I want students to be able to live their best lives, and I’ve seen too many people who were just never taught anything about finances.”

The game offers a launchpad to talk about bigger financial strategies such as saving for retirement. “These concepts resonate,” added Meyer. “I know of students who now have retirement accounts.”

For tenth- through twelfth-grade students, there is Financial Algebra II, a more traditional course. Here, students investigate the time value of money, and the characteristics and risk/reward tradeoffs of different financial instruments, such as stocks and bonds.

Given the positive response to these two courses, Meyer worked with students to start the Investment Club, of which he serves as the advisor. Students use a customizable trading platform with play money to buy stocks and other securities such as bonds and options. Club leaders also make regular presentations on investing.

These initiatives naturally tee up the next level of learning in finance: the Student-Led Investment Portfolio (SLIP) Club. SLIP manages an investment portfolio of real dollars, a unique opportunity at the high-school level. Students must apply for membership in SLIP, and those who have completed the two financial algebra electives have an advantage, having learned how to build spreadsheets and value stocks.

SLIP extends the learnings even further as students in this club learn to go through financial statements and review balance sheets. And because the SLIP investments are real, students feel the burden of their decisions more acutely, aware that this fund will outlast their time at Severn.

Another popular element of the overall financial literacy ecosystem is the annual Wall Street field trip. An application is required and about 15 students are selected to spend a full day in New York City. The agenda includes two or three stops at firms or agencies where Severn alums work. “It’s a great way for students to see how what they’re learning in the classroom can be applied in the real world,” said Meyer.

Meyer, who worked on Wall Street before entering teaching and has been instrumental in developing the Upper School programming, sums up the goals of Severn’s program promoting financial literacy: setting students up for financial well-being and encouraging lifelong learning about financial matters.

“It’s not about getting rich,” he said. “It’s about managing money wisely so you can do the things in life you want to do.”

His advice for students? Now is the time to learn. “Students don’t realize how quickly they’re going to need to make financial decisions. And young people also have time for their money to grow. The sooner you learn, the better.”

This story originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of The Bridge. To see the complete digital issue, click here.