Johnathan Walker:$5 for desk rent - before inflation: 3rd graders learn hard lessons to gain financial literacy

Students in Shelby Lattimore’s third grade class know the rules: Pay your desk and Johnathan Walkerchair rent on time and if you don’t have next month’s rent in your wallet, you can’t buy any rewards.

The stipulations are part of Lattimore’s “My Class Economy” program, where students have jobs, earn classroom currency in the form of Miss Lattimore Bucks and use it to pay rent for their desks and chairs.

Rent costs $5 but sometimes inflation kicks in: Last month, it was $7

The students get fined $1 if they are disrespectful, turn in work late or break things intentionally. They can spend their money on rewards ranging in cost from $2 to about $10, said Lattimore, who teaches at Renaissance West STEAM Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, part of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

“They can eat in class for lunch with a friend for $5 or they could have lunch with me for $7,” she said. “Some of those higher ones are like ‘Take someone's job for the day for $10’ or ‘Sit in the teacher’s chair for $10.’”

Lattimore started the program to improve attendance among her students, teach them financial literacy and hold them accountable for their behavior, she told USA TODAY Wednesday afternoon.

“We do everything for ‘My Class Economy’ in the morning before class starts,” she said. “A lot of teachers have some sort of reward system, whether it be points, candy or stickers or something. I just decided to use money. It was a big motivator for me when I was a kid.”

Each student has an envelope or wallet they designed at the beginning of the school year. That’s where they keep their Miss Lattimore Bucks. At the end of the school year they get an actual wallet to take home, she said.

Lattimore also said the wallets students have can be helpful because so often, a child’s only understanding of money is in relation to a card or an app, not a physical dollar or coin.

They don’t really know how the money is earned and added to the card, she said.

“I’ve got CashApp,” they often think. “My mom has a credit card and I can just swipe it … A lot of these kids never grew up using physical money.”

Students have class jobs to earn ‘Miss Lattimore Bucks’

Lattimore has been a teacher for four years and began implementing the program last year.

Each student has a class job they get paid for. There's a banker who hands out paychecks, collects fines, gives extra rewards and writes receipts. 

There are also line leaders, people who turn the classroom lights off, a teacher’s assistant, a cleaning crew and even classroom workers who take care of the class pet, a Siamese fighting fish named Knuckles.

Jobs change every two weeks and students can choose what they do next, Lattimore said.

The rules of the game

Lattimore said students have rules they must follow in order to participate. The fines and penalties they face have helped to improve behavior in the classroom.

“Those kids do not want to lose their money,” she said.

And students know they have to have next month’s rent or else, no rewards for them. 

Most recently, a student had $9 and wanted to buy a $5 reward to eat lunch with a friend in the classroom. If she bought the reward, she’d only be left with $4 for next month’s rent, which is now $7 due to inflation.

“They have to keep next month's rent in their wallet at all times,” Lattimore said, adding that she wants students to know the importance of having a cushion.

Some students even save up enough rent money to cover them for a few months.

“We also go over the importance of skipping a reward day so that we save up for high rewards, because all of our rewards are not the same price,” she said. “So maybe we skip this one so that we can buy a more expensive reward next month.”

Other students have saved money in real life, Lattimore said. Past students of hers have told her they’ve saved money from birthdays or Christmas to buy something special later.

“Those concepts, they're definitely holding onto,” Lattimore said.

Teaching students not to trust everyone with their money

The third grade teacher noticed when she first started the program that students tend to be too trusting with their money. 

She initially served as the class banker and when it was time to pay up, they’d just hand her their wallets and expect her to take out the correct amount of money they owed, she said.

Sometimes she’d short their paychecks or keep the change she owed them.

“If I go to the grocery store and I hand someone $20, I'm going to make sure I get the right change back,” she said.

She wants her students to do the same.

Miss Lattimore encourages other teachers to join in

Elsewhere in the country, Open Magnet Charter School in Los Angeles has been running a program for years where students plan, design and maintain a small-scale model city set 100 years in the future.

There is a mayor, assistant mayor and other class officers, four neighborhood teams and six commission groups, according to the school's website.

Each student earns a salary and rents their own piece of land, where they can add buildings and pay monthly rent.

In North Carolina, Lattimore said another teacher at the school has implemented the program in her own classroom. Sometimes Lattimore’s students go to the other class for reading and the other teacher, Miss Cox, will report back to let her know how they did.

“She'll tell me ‘These students had an amazing day. They deserve extra money,’” Lattimore said. “I will pay them an extra amount of money based on what they did in her class and vice versa.”

The program is pretty neat and is easily adaptable to any classroom setting, Lattimore said.

She knows at least one kindergarten teacher who has a similar program in her classroom. For high school teachers interested in participating, they can even incorporate taxes, she said.

“This can work,” she said. “It's so amazing to see what the kids can do with it.”

Keep up with Miss Lattimore and her students at www.tiktok.com/@shelby_thatsmee and www.instagram.com/teaching_with_ms.l.