Six years ago, Sharrel Titlebaum, a teacher at Chicago’s Calhoun North Elementary School, looked around the school’s West Side neighborhood and saw only currency exchanges. There were no banks, and no opportunities for students to learn the benefits of saving money.
“I wanted them to have some understanding of finance, and what a bank did with money,” she recalled. “I also wanted them to know that saving was an investment in their future.”
Shortly thereafter, Calhoun North began participating in Bank At School, a joint effort between the office of state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, schools and financial institutions that helps children learn lessons in saving. Through Bank At School, students have the opportunity to open savings accounts and earn interest on their money on regular “bank days” at school.
Today, Titlebaum reports that the results of her school’s participation in Bank At School can be measured not only in dollars and cents but also in the enthusiasm Calhoun North students show toward money management.
“Now we have about 275 students actively involved,” Titlebaum said. “We must have collected more than $15,000 (since the program’s inception). We have some children who have saved more than $500. But we don’t turn anyone away. If they want to save $1, we deposit their $1.”
More important, students are excited by the program. “They love banking,” Titlebaum said. “Even the kids who’ve graduated (continue) to send their money in through their siblings at the school. They get very excited when they see their money growing. . . . And parents love the program because they see their children having opportunities they didn’t have.”
Titlebaum isn’t alone in her enthusiasm. Talk with teachers, bankers and top school officials throughout the state and you’ll hear similar stories. “Over the years, I’ve seen kids really get into it, really work on saving money toward worthwhile causes,” such as holiday gift-buying and class trips, said Nicki Ruiz, Montessori coordinator and technology coordinator at Clissold Elementary School on Chicago’s Southwest Side, where the program is in its fifth year.
“Eventually, these students will become customers of ours and grow with us,” said Dolores Barth, personal banker at First Midwest Bank N.A. in Deerfield, which has teamed in the program with Deerfield’s Holy Cross School for four years. “I think it is a good program. I wish they’d have had it when we were younger.”
“Students feel better when they’re treated as adults, when they’re told they can handle money, see it grow, and that it’s available to them at a later date,” said Gery Chico, president of the Chicago School Board. “And that does increase their enthusiasm about school. It makes school more relevant to them.”
Bank At School now boasts more than 160,000 participating students in more than 800 Illinois schools, Topinka said. More than 350 financial institutions, including major banks, community banks, thrifts and credit unions, join forces with schools in their communities to help children open savings accounts and learn the fundamentals of saving and money management.
But children acquire other skills as well. “They use it in the study of economics, mathematics and history,” Topinka said. “It’s very easily integrated into an entire curriculum. Plus, it teaches really good citizenship, because kids use positive peer pressure to compete with one another and see who can save the most.”
At Clissold, where 350 students from kindergarten through 6th grade take part in the program, children learn mathematics skills by entering their own deposits and interest payments in their account books, Ruiz reported. “We use 6th graders as tellers, and they certainly develop customer service skills as well as math skills,” she added.
But the ultimate lesson is the benefit of saving rather than spending money. “They start small,” Topinka said. “These amounts are not overwhelming, but by the time they get into high school, they’ve established the pattern and habit of saving money. The chances are these kids won’t ever fall into the `I’m going to spend myself silly’ trap.”
Banks and other financial institutions like the program, too. They send representatives to partner schools at least once monthly to take deposits, in the process establishing relationships with young depositors who could remain customers for decades. “It takes a little more bookkeeping on their part,” Topinka said. “But they don’t want a financially illiterate customer base. If you have an educated group of customers, you’re going to have a better bank.”
The First National Bank of Morton Grove, part of Chicago’s MidCity Financial Corp., has participated in Bank At School for five years and works with several schools in the near northern suburbs. Representatives of the bank visit the schools monthly to collect savings deposits, and twice a year host field trips to the bank. During their visits, children spend time in each department, learning about the tellers, personal banking, lending, safe deposits and the bank’s investment center.
Vice president and acting cashier David Peshek said officials of his bank believe it’s important for children to learn what banks are and how they function in relation to the economy and individuals. “The sooner you learn how to save, the more beneficial it is for you,” he said, adding that the bank benefits from the program as well. “We start a relationship with kids early, and hopefully that relationship will continue on. If we teach them how to handle their money now, later on they’ll be better customers.”
The First National Bank of Toledo, in Toledo, Ill., 60 miles south of Champaign, has partnered in Bank At School with Cumberland Elementary School in Toledo for four years, said customer service manager Teresa Allison.
Personal bankers go to the school each month to accept the deposits of 3rd through 5th graders. The bank pays 4 percent on the students’ savings accounts, one of the highest rates of interest in the Bank At School program.
“They like to see their money grow each month,” Allison said. “A lot of them will come up and say, `Hey, what do I have now?’ A lot of them make deposits every month. Our goal is to get the customer base, and try to get kids to understand banking at a younger age.”
Burr Ridge-based TCF National Bank Illinois has been part of Bank At School for about five years, said Taomi Madison, the bank’s coordinator of the Bank At School program. She has proof the program is working “when I see the kids really encouraged by the money they’ve saved,” she said. “They’re really excited about it. Every month they see the money constantly adding up. And they see that, with interest, their money’s making money.”
Better yet, Madison added, children who take part in the program rarely withdraw their savings. “Many don’t even touch it,” she said. “The program is teaching them long-term saving.”
Timothy A. Herwig, TCF National Bank Illinois vice president of community affairs, says that Depression-era Americans strongly believed in the virtues of saving, but the easy availability of credit cards more recently has eroded those beliefs in the Baby Boom generation.
Bank At School, he believes, is doing much to return children to the once fashionable idea that saving is not only wise but patriotic. “What’s really sweet about the Bank At School program is that . . . it encourages kids to save, instead of encouraging them to spend,” he said. “It’s a wonderful way to show kids the pleasure of saving.”
Or, as Topinka noted, “it benefits the family, it benefits society, it benefits the individual. I can’t find a downside.”
School officials interested in learning more about Bank At School should call Topinka’s office in Chicago at 312-814-1700 or in Springfield at 217-782-6540.
