Financial literacy education is vital for the financial health and future of our country. The ways in which we deliver that education are diverse. One thing we know is educating our youth in the ways of personal finance is important and Intuit, the innovative founders of Mint, Turbo Tax and Quick Books, are putting their expertise and resources into creating new technologies to to do just that. Jared Davidove, Senior Manager, Strategic Education Partnerships, is working to bring this technology to youth through those on the front lines - our nation's teachers. We talk with Jared about everything from how it began to where we are now, as well as the challenges that all financial educators face.
Financial literacy education is vital for the financial health and future of our country. The ways in which we deliver that education are diverse. One thing we know is educating our youth in the ways of personal finance is important and Intuit, the innovative founders of Mint, Turbo Tax and Quick Books, are putting their expertise and resources into creating new technologies to to do just that. Jared Davidove, Senior Manager, Strategic Education Partnerships, is working to bring this technology to youth through those on the front lines - our nation's teachers. We talk with Jared about everything from how it began to where we are now, as well as the challenges that all financial educators face.
[inaudible] welcome to Talk Wealth to Me, a safe space podcast, where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance, the information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:Hello, and welcome to another edition of Talk Wealth to Me this week is I was very, very excited Felipe, because we had an old buddy from an organization, a large tech company that everybody knows called Intuit. And the funny thing is, is they might say what's Intuit. Uh, but they do know Mint and they do know Turbo Tax and they do know QuickBooks. And that is the parent company that gives us all those incredible personal finance products.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, that's great. And they're so down to earth, so willing to give back to the community so willing to help, uh, in so many different ways to help us teachers, students, uh, is, is their big mission. So it was great talking to Jared And, uh, you know, going over there about.
Chase Peckham:My cell phone is my front light right now. That is illuminating me. Oh,
Jared Davidove:Oh, It's like your, what do they call it a ring.
Chase Peckham:Yeah, that is that's right. That's my ring. And so we are, uh, I just ordered one. So I just realized that, you know, the backlight in my daughter's room, uh, is just not, it's just not great, but the sound quality of her room is so much better because in COVID times we don't have a studio to go to. So, uh, it is what it is, but, uh, Jared, I want to thank you so much for joining us today.
Jared Davidove:Of course, no problem. I'm always happy to do it.
Chase Peckham:So, you know, so much has happened, but let's start from the beginning. Uh, give us a little bit about Intuit and what it is. I think so many people know the different products that you have out there, but do they know, you know, that Intuit is behind all of them. I know that I'm sure people are familiar with TurboTax. It's, it's global, it's out there. Uh, you've got QuickBooks, which is what small businesses and businesses are using all over the country in the world. And then of course, Mint. Uh, but tell us a little bit about Intuit and what the purpose and the goals of Intuit are.
Jared Davidove:Yeah. Happy to. Um, so you actually took a little bit of like my intro thunder, usually when I have like a podcast or another sort of a session, but I usually, if I'm like in an audience or if I have, you know, anywhere from a hundred plus people and I ask who is Intuit, who's heard of Intuit before, I'll usually get 50% will raise their hand. Like I know the name, but I don't know why I know the name. And then I ask, well, have you heard of TurboTax? Um, and everyone's like, yes. And then you see all the hands every once in a while, I'll get like a couple people who have never heard of TurboTax. And usually they're not from America or they really haven't done taxes yet. Um, we used to really, when you think about it from like a branding perspective, we focus more on our products and now it's shifting towards a focus on Intuit, which you'll probably start to notice that here in a little bit, um, with sort of marketing campaigns and whatnot. Um, but as you know, chase, you did kind of mention, we have TurboTax, you know, which you can't avoid in life. What are death and taxes? That's why everyone knows us. Um, we have QuickBooks, which, uh, I don't know if this is necessarily true or not, but I know we used to take the claim that it was number one, accounting software for small businesses. So I might get in trouble from our, a brand new team in case I can't use that verbiage anymore. And then we also have Mint, which is a personal finance app. Um, I wanna say there are about 3 million users that, uh, use it, uh, yearly. And then most recently, um, we acquired Credit Karma. Um, uh, I want to say back in maybe March ish, give or take, and it's still going through SEC approvals right now.
Chase Peckham:That is phenomenal news credit karma in our presentations, you know, comes up quite a bit because they've done such a great job of marketing out there and they're famous for their free credit scores. Uh, and I did not know. And we've been a partner for what almost two years now. And I didn't was this a hush hush? You didn't want to tell us.
Felipe Arevalo:Just snuck that one past us.
Chase Peckham:Just snuck it by us.
Jared Davidove:I think it's honestly, because it's, it's still going through sec approvals right now. Um, it's supposed to be wrapped up by the end of the year, but we felt that the culture, so, um, the culture Intuit, it's very customer focused and credit karma shares the same values and we share the same ecosystem around personal finance. Um, you know, something that we believe in. I know that they believe in as well. We call it design thinking. Um, at Intuit we don't do or launch any new products before we go through the design thinking process. What it really means is falling in love with the problem and not the solution. And so how we do that and how it starts off is really listening to our customers, which in, depending on which product line you fit or who you serve, like for me, I never called, I wouldn't call students customers, but that's who I serve. I serve students. So when I first started our financial readiness program, I spent about six months in the classroom wanting to learn why is personal finance a problem today? We do the same thing for QuickBooks. We regularly go out and talk to accountants and say, what works. What's not working. How can we fix this? If you had a magic wand, what would you want? That's usually like a pretty big question. If you had a million dollars, what would you want to invest in? We do that for everything. We do it for mint. We do it for QuickBooks. We do it for TurboTax. Um, and we, uh, actually, uh, I've been working, um, Stanford D school, which is the ones who founded this along with IDEO, um, who are kind of like the head, uh, big people of design thinking. But, uh, besides that, that's kind of where we felt the culture is between credit, karma and Intuit really sort of matched
Chase Peckham:You are the senior manager of strategic education partners, is that correct?
Jared Davidove:Correct. That is, it is my title. Um, by name, uh, what it really means is I lead our financial readiness initiatives. Which is how Intuit, uh, works with high school students and post-secondary community college and four-year institutions from a personal finance lens.
Chase Peckham:Give us the history behind that.
Jared Davidove:Oh man. So it started, um, I want to say about three years ago, um, Intuit hired my boss. Who's the VP of corporate responsibility and we declared education as a big bet. Um, we were doing education with not a heavy emphasis or focus for QuickBooks, um, where we knew that accounting software was needed for students. Um, and what we do for educators and students is free. And so we wanted to take a hard look in the mirror and say, okay, well we have other areas of expertise and how can we help solve what this problem would be? So that is when, um, my boss ended up, you know, looking for other people to help bring on, um, myself and my counterpart who leads what we call career readiness. And so ultimately what we're trying to do is solve 21st century skills gaps. Um, cause there is a research study by, I believe it was PWC that said 50% of new college, um, graduates are not ready for the workforce. And so ultimately when you think about what we're trying to do for students is get them job ready. How do we help them solve this 21st century skills gaps? And whether it's a communication, whether it's personal finance, whether it's a leadership, um, critical thinking, all the things that we kind of think about that you need to be as an employee of a company is what we're trying to do. Um, for students to help them sort of own what we call their fin or their, I call it a financial future, but when, uh, own their futures and help be successful.
Chase Peckham:When did Intuit start backing it financially? And when did they really start pushing it?
Jared Davidove:It was about three years ago.
Chase Peckham:So relatively new because Intuit's been around quite a while.
Jared Davidove:Yeah. So Intuit's Intuit itself has been around. Uh, we call ourselves, uh, what is the name that we use? I think we call it, you know, it's like the old startup on the block and Silicon Valley. Um, when you think about, um, you know, where we started from, uh, like the early.com into where we are now in the mobile, um, because of the design thinking and always wanting to sort of disrupt ourselves, that's kind of how we've really stayed relevant. And there's actually a really cool article. I don't know, like the link to share off the top of my head. Um, but I think it was the wall street journal published an article that said, why is Intuit not dead? That really does a deep dive into disrupting ourselves because of the design thinking process. And so, um, back to your question Chase about when we started our program started about three years ago, so we are relatively new and that's when we declared education and working with students, one of our big bets.
Chase Peckham:What was behind that? What was the thinking? I mean, because we talk about personal finance often, obviously, I mean, that's what this podcast is about. That's what the San Diego Fnancial Literacy center is about and yet, and a huge part of who Felipe and I, and all our great volunteers focus on is our youth. I mean, that's a huge program that we have locally and now we're finding with COVID because we're able to reach more. We do get outside of San Diego, but physically it was always in person. And I know that that's where our partnership started and getting, getting that platform going. So what was behind it? Why the youth, what was it? Who was it, uh, that, that made that part of the community at large, uh, where you guys put your focus.
Jared Davidove:A big reason behind it was the further development of our corporate responsibility team. So I sit under corporate responsibility. I don't report to any product or any team, um, which is why, what we do for educators and students is free, um, because ultimately how I'm judged on my success is the impact that I make with students. Um, and are we better preparing them for their jobs? Are they more confident to own, uh, their financial futures? Do they know how to manage personal finances, everything you and I, we take for granted because of the space that we work in is how do we help students feel the same when they graduate, whether that is preparing to file taxes. You know, one thing that we do up with, or what we call is, or we're trying to do is demystify tax day anxiety. I know I grew up, my parents anytime, April rolled around and was like, Oh man, it's tax time. It wasn't fun.
Chase Peckham:Stay away from mom and dad. I remember that
Jared Davidove:It's kinda like, yeah, it's kind of like a weight on all of our shoulders.
Felipe Arevalo:That's why people procrastinate it so often.
Jared Davidove:Exactly. And so that's what we want to help students get through, um, because we no longer, um, you know, we, we do it for adults. Our whole, everything we do is about personal finance and financial empowerment. But how do we now take it from being reactive with adults, to being proactive with students? Because if you think about it, a lot of us, we never talked to our parents about personal finance. And we learned from, uh, our like terrible mistakes that we made. I know Felipe, one thing whenever I went to the class with you, and we would go through these workshops, you connect so well with all the students, because what can we talk about the mistakes that we made to personal finance and that's what parents are afraid to share with their children. And so then how do children learn about personal finance? Well, when they get 18 or become 18, they get a credit card, they put all this money on it. They make a mistake. They don't know what they're doing. So how do we go from reactive and adults to like, change their behavior earlier on, because we want them to be prepared to own their own, their financial futures and not necessarily have these bad experiences and learn from those.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. I like to try, especially when I'm presenting at like schools that I attended, like a Cuyamaca College or Grossmont College that I went to before transferring to State, I like to share the examples with them. And instead of real life, you can go get a credit card and you can listen to my presentation and learn about the dangers. Or you can go get a credit card and overspend on car audio like I did, and you're going to learn either way. It's just, one's going to cost you a lot more and it's going to affect you a lot longer in a negative way than if you just listen.
Jared Davidove:Exactly.
Chase Peckham:So you said something that struck me and it's something that we talk about all the time is the word behavior, because, you know, we, we talk about literacy, right? That's the, that's the quote that we all hear. It's very popular, financial literacy and people would take literacy as being able to read or being able to be an and because a lot of people think about education. If we educate these kids, then they're gonna, they're going to be successful, but educating and then behavior, they're not the same things, are they?
Jared Davidove:No, they're very, like, couldn't be any more sort of different, I would say. And depending on who you ask, you're going to get a bunch of different answers for this. Um, for me, and what we've done for our program is we think about sort of like financial empowerment and financial autonomy as like sort of that goal that we're striving for, where financial literacy is. One piece of that. When someone tells me financial literacy, I think of the financial foundations. I think of, if you ask me that definition of a budget, I can tell you the definition of a budget, or I can tell you what a checking versus a banking or a savings account is. That's what I think of when I think of financial literacy, but having that understanding, but then being able to apply it to your life are two very different things. And so what we try to teach is, and we actually, so we don't own any personal finance curriculum today. There is so much great free personal finance curriculum out there that there is no reason to number one, just create another piece of curriculum because it's out there. Um, when, what we really want to focus on and because what we're doing is we have real-world tools. And so what we want to do is with these curriculums, say, how do you take the learning the financial literacy piece, but then teach students to apply it to their life. So they learn about budgeting, but then can they actually go prove that they can build a budget or can they actually, how to, uh, help increase a credit score? Um, so it's really taking the combination of both and then putting it together to sort of create what we call that financial empowerment. And there's more to it than just that there's, you know, what we have a heavy focus on is also a communication and confidence. You've heard me talk about that. You know, how can we help students, um, start to generate this safe environment to want to communicate about personal finance? Um, the other way that I learned was because my friends or peers or colleagues, um, I definitely had no traditional or sort of learnings in school about personal finance.
Chase Peckham:As there isn't, uh, I mean, I, I'm a brand new member of California jumpstart coalition, uh, just got invited and, and, uh, welcome to the board last week. And that's the real big initiative from, for jumpstart is, is getting that kind of information, uh, and getting those curriculums in schools yet. We're no closer to that right now. That's, that's a battle that they're going to fight. At least there's organizations fighting that battle. So then there's the organizations like ours, uh, but I'll be a different, you're a tech company that, that has real tools. We are a nonprofit that is just trying to get to the masses and educate as much as we possibly can, which is why this has been such a great partnership for us. Uh, and I hope for you guys, at least locally, just because you're here, but you're so much larger than, than we are. What were your interpretations of what was lacking when this first started and what have you found in the three years since you first started?
Jared Davidove:Yeah. So I'll take us back three years, um, to when we first I've spent the first six months in the classroom and that doesn't stop. Um, even up till today, I still meet with educators all the time, because I want to know how they're teaching personal finance, because I don't, I don't sit in the classroom. I'm not an educator. So for me to build something and say, go use, this makes no sense. Um, so three years ago when, uh, we've kind of first started this, you know, the big thing that I really learned was like relevancy for students was very important. Um, an example that I give all the time, I sat in on a tax course, and I think actually both of you probably heard this story already, but I sat in on an educator teaching taxes, um, just cause I wanted to see how the taxes are being taught. I had no expectations. I just wanted to observe, learn and listen. Um, and I saw that taxes, number one were being taught by pen and paper, just students. Um, I know I can't name a single individual that does taxes. I've been in paper today. And then number two, um, I saw them learning on 1040 EZ form. Um, and I was like, that's very interesting because today you can't actually file taxes with a 1040 EZ form. So students are A learning way of pen and paper, which they will never to most likely in their future. I couldn't, I don't even know what percentage of people file taxes by pen and paper. Um, and they're learning on a form that's not relevant to them. So that's kind of what really sort of struck me early on was like, is this true for all cases? Like, or is it just this one class that I happen to listen in on? And so I learned that that's common that students learn taxes by pen and paper. Um, similarly with budgets and credit scores, for example, they learn how to build budgets by pen and paper, but where do students live? They live on their phones, right? I mean, I legitimately like my phone is within two feet of me. It sits on my desk. I'll let you, your guys' cell phones are probably just as close. Same thing with students at all times. Their phones are right there. So why are we not teaching in a way that is relevant to them for their futures? And so that's kind of, and same thing with credit scores, I learned a lot of educators would bring in their free annual credit report into class and use that to teach credit scores to their students. Um, instead of by whether it's, uh, an app or checking online, whatever it might be, but why are we teaching personal finance something that's so critical in ways that students won't use in several years when they're ready to sort of own their futures?
Chase Peckham:I would love to kind of delve deeper into that when they're teaching credit scores and we do the same thing, uh, how, how should it be taught in your opinion.
Jared Davidove:For me it's what do, what helps the students the most? What is the best way? And what's the most relevant way to them? So what we tried to do was take sort of a two, like a two pillar approach, how do we help teachers make it easy to teach, to teach credit scores, but then also how does it work for students? And so for example, what we use with like our Mint simulations is we're teaching this concept of like, what are the six factors that make up your credit score and then go into a deep dive into each of them. And the differences we don't have sort of like, I don't know how long the credit score is anymore. I haven't pulled my free credit report in a long time because of all these apps that we now have the ability to use. But, um, you know, it's probably no shorter than five pages at least. And so with these new tools, what you're really doing is making it attractive for students to want to look at, um, you know, it's easy to figure out, Oh, if I'm looking at on-time payments, I know I can go here instead of scrolling through five pages of paper. And so, you know, thinking about your question Chase, I don't know that there is one way to teach credit scores, but for me, it should start with what is the most relevant way for students to learn? You know, they're going to be on whether it's their CHASE or Bank of America or Wells Fargo app, or they might be on credit karma. Um, most likely that's where they're going to be going to learn about credit scores. So why are we not teaching them? Um, the ways that makes most sense to them.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. I'm glad you answered it the way you did, because when what we have found by doing it, and it's so interesting on the tech side, because you're creating the, those apps and that technology that they're going to use. And when we teach it, they have to learn what they actually are. They have to know what they are and why it's important to them. And that, that he need to look at them and then buy which way, whichever app or whatever technology they find it then. Great. But the whole idea is you have to teach them or at least give them an inkling of how they work and why they are there, why they are relevant to them individually, otherwise who cares, what apps you have, if they don't even go well, what is, why is this relevant to me? How is this going to affect my life? Right? So once they realize that, okay, this is going to be, I'm going to be affected by these scores, not knowing how I have built them once they understand, okay, my behavior and we're going to get back to that word really has an effect on whatever my scores are. And these are the ways now I should be able to follow it.
Felipe Arevalo:I think Jared touched on a good point where incorporating that technology and making that very intimidating five, six page document, maybe shorter for first time, credit users, uh, or younger, uh, students and turning that into something. They can not to say that they can't understand that five-page document, but something that they could look at and instantaneously like, Oh I know what I'm looking at now.
Jared Davidove:Exactly. It's tangible for the students to be able to understand a big question to that Felipe that I get is like, where do I start? Like, how do I even begin personal? Like for, um, someone who just recently graduated college, that's like, I know nothing about personal finances. Where do I start? Like use Google. Google is your best friend. And just become aware of what's out there because what works for me, doesn't work for you and what works for one student doesn't work for all students. Um, you know, so when you, you know, ultimately a lot of people end up paying for personal finance tools, but there are so many out there that are free and same, same thing with education. I mean, whether it's learning it in high school or you're learning it, um, after you just graduated, whether it's everything from a curriculum to an app, you can learn about it for free. You shouldn't have to pay to learn personal finances.
Chase Peckham:Hopefully they're learning before they have already created a history for themselves.
Jared Davidove:Yes exactly.
Chase Peckham:Because so many times people say, I don't know where to start and they unknowingly have already started. You guys were before, you know, you were going out to schools, you were with us, um, volunteering. You followed us into the classroom, uh, several times. And then the crazy pandemic COVID-19 hit and everything just absolutely shut down. We we'd still to this day have not gone in person and seeing a class. You have no idea how much I miss, uh, looking at faces in person, uh, and being able to speak and, and teach this stuff, uh, in front of a live audience where you can get tangible reactions and that energy from the group. Um, but you guys, I know quickly pivoted in what you were doing and tell us about that and what the journey has been like since March.
Jared Davidove:Um, it's been a whirlwind. needless to say, you know, had somebody had a crystal ball back in April, like that would have been, I would have paid, you know, who knows how much money just to see what that crystal ball would have looked like. Um, but you know, it's, the, everyone was going through the same thing. So as difficult as it was for us, I couldn't have even begin to imagine what it was like for a teacher who has never taught through Zoom or a student who's never attended class through Zoom. I mean, I think about the lens of like, how hard is it for us, but when you take a look in the mirror and then you look at what students are going through or teachers to learn, it's like, okay, let me, let me kind of put what we take for granted into perspective. Um, but similar to what we always do, we started with design thinking. I want to say, we probably talked to, I don't know, at least between 30 and 50 different teachers to understand what, what is happening in their classroom, you know, are they on Zoom? Are they just canceled for the rest of the year? You know, through summer, what is your fall going to look like? You know, are you back in school? Are you hybrid? What does that look like.
Chase Peckham:And they had no idea at the time?
Jared Davidove:Exactly. So they had no idea. I mean, people still don't know the Department of Education didn't come out with like a mandate. They basically left it up to the States to decide, um, even some cases I know like where we live, um, chase out here, like whether it's Poway or San Diego unified, it's different. So, and you can't solve for all. I mean, that's, you can't boil the ocean at one time. So, but it started with learning again, we wanted to start with the students and we wanted to start with the teachers and learn and figure out what is class going to be like and how can we help them as best as we can. Um, you know, unfortunately I think because of COVID, we really understand like the digital divide that's being created from sort of the upper class to the middle, to the lower class. And so I sit into it, we have a really heavy focus on, on the underserved communities, focusing on black communities, focusing on Latin X, focusing on Native American communities, because we know that, you know, the students that maybe go to some of these, um, schools that have, you know, they give out computers and then you take a look at maybe like, uh, you know, New York school district or Los Angeles, Los Angeles, or Chicago, where they don't have the sort of same budget and funding. They might not universally have access to a computer or access to internet. Um, same thing within like rural America. So we wanted to figure out how do we start with underserved communities and then, um, take a look at what we're also offering to figure out, okay, how do we focus on those communities with what we do have? Um, but what we needed to do, we quickly learned was shift similar to you guys, everything that was in person to be digital. Um, luckily because we are a tech company and our tools, are digital, it made that portion of going through changes easier, but we still had to figure out how do we take our in-class and in-person learnings and say, okay, teacher, you can now quote unquote, hand this over to your students. Or you can lead through Zoom using different types of curriculum and simulations. Um, but we didn't just similarly like say, okay, here you go, teachers just go do this. Um, we have advisor panels where we have teachers who go through all of the curriculum, all of the simulations that we have, because again, it makes no sense for me to build something if it doesn't help both again the educator and the student first and foremost. Um, and then we went and tested it. So I want to say back probably in March and April, when teachers kind of didn't know what to do, they were looking for any sort of time to kill. I probably guest lectured in, I couldn't even tell you how many different classes cause I wanted to see if what we had would work. Um, and so it's really testing and pivoting and just moving as quick as you can, um, until you have what, you know, what we currently kind of do today, but it's still always what I'll call in progress or it can always be better.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It's always a, it's always a working document, so to speak. That's what we always say about our curriculum is it's never finalized. It's it's always evolving. And ours has evolved in learning from, from you guys on the technology side, because the two really really matter. I mean, the education from what we talk about, we're not going to be any better if we don't have a partner like you to give kids and the community, large lower serve communities, the actual tools to be able to do these, all the different behaviors that we're, we're talking about. So as you have from, from March and April and May, as you were going through this and you were teaching that, how has that evolved to where you are today? And I know again, working document, but what did you find is working and what did you find wasn't working quite as well? If, if at all?
Jared Davidove:Yeah. So, um, really, I mean the biggest change that we went through was anything that was in person needed to shift to digital without exception, or like without any question, um, because anything that was in person was not going to work for. I mean, I, I don't have to be back into our office until I want to say, it's like next July, July 20, 21,
Chase Peckham:You don't have to be or they don't want you to be there.
Jared Davidove:They're asking us to not be.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Jared Davidove:Um, and so schools may, could be virtual this whole year. Um, some again though, might be hybrid some, again, we'll be in class. You've kind of seen everything across the industry.
Chase Peckham:We're seeing it all right now.
Jared Davidove:Yeah, exactly. So really it was, it was just the shift of how do we help teachers prepare. So we, we do a lot more professional development webinars now. Um, I want to say since, I mean, you know, I know like, um, New York, the district, they just kind of went back to school. Their high school went back. I want to say maybe within the last two weeks. So pretty recently and pretty late, whereas I know down here in San Diego where we are, it started, um, probably back in like Labor Day, give or take. So they've been in school for almost two months now. Um, and so, but, you know, because of that, we needed to solve. And what, what do we do for teachers is, you know, with professional development, it's really helping them say, okay, with these new tools, how do we use it and integrate it into my class? Because they spend countless numbers of hours over the summer, um, in a summer that was unknown. And so, you know, it's again, it's just, how do we help benefit them as, as best as they can. And it's really just training them to use tools for the classroom, whether it's Google classroom or it's some of the simulations around personal finance or, you know, my counterpart leads, um, how to teach design thinking. So leading webinars on that, I would say that was probably our heavy, our first heavy focus was professional development.
Felipe Arevalo:I think it's very important, the professional development, because a lot of these, I have a lot of teacher friends, my sister-in-law's a teacher, uh I've so around teachers and, you know, they had a tough summer because they were preparing for multiple scenarios, not knowing if any of them were going to actually be, I mean, they had no clue what was going to happen. Are you going back? Are you going back half the time you're going back early, late, and it depended on, like you mentioned where you were and it could be a matter of, you know, the school district down the road is different than this school district. So, you know, two people teaching the same thing, second grade at one school and second grade and the other school are completely different, uh, levels and high schools, you know, just different schedules or they may not go to school every day or go to school on Wednesdays or Mondays or so. It's great that you guys were able to incorporate that development. For, for the teachers and for the people actually teaching it, uh, during the summer. Did you guys see that, um, uh, was there more interest than usual? I know that we encounter, you know, sometimes more interest because of the financial uncertainty or do you think that they were a little bit more reluctant to take on the added development?
Jared Davidove:So I w I think during the summer when there were no kids in class and they didn't have to teach Zoom, there was a lot of interest and very quickly, I think teachers burned out, um, similar to, you know, we sit on Zoom, you know, for our work meetings and the Zoom fatigue is real.
Chase Peckham:It's a real thing. No doubt.
Jared Davidove:I can't, I can't imagine, um, how teachers, I mean, it's just us three adults. I can't imagine having 20 plus kids also on a Zoom. I've done it a couple of times and it's, it's a lot of work.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh Jared. I've heard my second grader's class. Uh, we share an office, uh, sometimes when he's in his morning meeting and I'm sitting there like, Oh my, I could not handle that many kids with all their personalities and"Hey, this is the unmute button!" Uh,
Jared Davidove:And so early on over the summer there, I mean, there was a lot of interest in professional development ranging from how to use Zoom, to how to use specific curriculum. Um, I think since school has started, interest has died down because of Zoom fatigue. And also it's just taking the day to day punches. Um, you know, teachers are being thrown right and left and don't have an hour for professional development. And so some, some obviously still participate. I would say we're probably like at 75% occupancy of like what normally would be, um, when we go through professional development and the ones that do join, I've noticed it's a little bit less engaging and we've had enough. I mean, outside of like what we used to teach and professional developments, and now, um, some of it, you know, you just kind of see like, it's the, have to have it at the end of the day because they have to go through school during normal hours. Um, and so it just feels different than before. And I don't know if it's because, um, teachers are tired, which I'm sure, you know, that's probably part of it, but not all of it, but then they have to come home to their kids or they have to, you know, we, I still have to live life right outside of what we're doing. And so I think that's part of it
Chase Peckham:And the professional development, I mean the whole point and the reason they're doing it is to learn how to use these softwares, to pass it on to their kids, to pass it onto their students. Uh, and then finding the space with which to teach this when they have common core. And they've got the things that they are mandated, they've got to get to and personal finance. Isn't one of those in most school districts, at least here in California, for sure. So just for them to be able to find the place in their curriculum, that they have to do five days a week, whether it be hybrid, whether it be fully online, what have you, even in regular times, it's very difficult for these teachers to fit organizations like us in, and it takes a special teacher to do that. So that's gotta be something that, that, that is difficult for them as well.
Jared Davidove:Yeah. I know, you know, Utah, I consider sort of like that golden child with personal finance where it's required to take the course.
Chase Peckham:Georgia is pretty good too.
Jared Davidove:Just graduate. Yeah. There's there, you know, there's, I believe today there's five others, North Carolina being the newest member of that group requiring. Um, but then there's 21 or 22 other States where students have to take some sort of personal finance lesson before they can graduate. So there's still that really big gap from five to 21, which I think ends up correlating to like 8% of the student population is required to go through an entire course to graduate college or sorry to graduate high school. Um, but then you have, um, the States like California or where personal finance is not a requirement. And you hear teachers doing everything creative under the sun, because I think it's important. One of my favorite things I've heard was, um, I talked to at the jumpstart national conference last year, that was like last November, which, or wasn't November last November that unfortunately isn't happening this year because of COVID. Um, she told me that she teaches person she's an English teacher, but for two weeks she asked to teach on non-fiction and she chooses to teach personal finance in her English class because it's nonfiction. I was like, that is probably one of the coolest things I've heard.
Chase Peckham:That's creative.
Jared Davidove:Um, so for two weeks she did she tries to pack in as much as she can.
Chase Peckham:That's been an argument because people think of personal finance, right. As a math or an economics type of thing. Right. And realistically, it probably fits in social studies. Uh, maybe in any, that's phenomenal. I haven't heard that, uh, in English teacher.
Felipe Arevalo:If English doing that, you can put it in Spanish, you can put it in French, you can put it in any of the otehr other languages.
Chase Peckham:Where do we see this going from here? Where do you see Intuit in six months, a year, two years on the education side
Jared Davidove:In specifically tied to personal finance? Or education as a whole,?
Chase Peckham:Uh, personal finance education. And yeah, I guess, I guess both. And that, that could be a pretty long answer.
Jared Davidove:So I'll, let me, let me, let me start from the hole and I'll try to get an arrow here and I'll do this, uh, as succinctly as I can. Um, so we have a focus on job readiness, and I don't think that's going to change.
Chase Peckham:I hope not.
Jared Davidove:Because I think that is a skill that students will need. I mean, the UN has defined it as part of their criteria that developing the 21st century skills for students to be ready to go into work. Um, so I don't see that changing anytime soon, you know, whether it's ranging from, um, critical thinking to communication, to leadership, um, you know, I've kind of outlined like design thinking as part of that, that process. I think from a whole, that's probably where we will have a heavy focus and thinking about, um, but We, and then, you know, what, when you think about who we serve, it's really it's that underserved community. Um, we have what we call the prosperity hub school district program, which has very specific criteria to be part of where you need to have, um, you know, X percent. And I don't know these off the top of my head, but X percent of underserved or free and reduced lunch students, you know, you can't have, when you think about like the demographics, um, the population needs to needs to be a diverse group of students. It can't be, um, you know, like we wouldn't just go into an all-white school district. Um, it's really, when we think about Intuit's mission of powering prosperity, for those who need it, most, we take that same lens. We think about what school districts, how can we help them who need it most? And so who we serve, I don't, I don't really envision that changing, but the one thing that I can say, whether it's education or personal finance as a whole is we will always continuously to, uh, like disrupt ourselves because that's how you innovate. And that's how you make it more relevant for students. Technology is gonna, it changes year over year. It changes every other year. Um, you know, the iPhone comes out, whether there's a new one every year that comes out and there's probably three different versions, um, and same kind of concept that they go through. We do the same thing. So, you know, what's relevant today. Um, you know, maybe there's a new, uh, like personal finance score. That's set to you, you know who you are as a pro. I have no idea I'm making this up.
Chase Peckham:Sure.
Jared Davidove:But if that becomes the new thing, then, um, you know, we want to figure out how we make what we do relevant for students. Um, so what we have today might not be even remotely close to what we have in two years or three years, because again, it's thinking about who we serve and that students and what benefits them the most.
Chase Peckham:Well, Jared, we can't thank you enough. You've been a great friend and the passion for teaching and the collaboration that you guys have, uh, taken on and, and working with us has been phenomenal for our constituents, for the individuals that we, we reach. Um, and so we can't thank enough and for that and for joining us today.
Jared Davidove:Yeah, no problem. I, I'm definitely happy to do it. If you guys want to do this again, I'm obviously more than happy to, um, and thank you, you know, for the continued partnership. And I'm looking forward to getting back to doing in person lessons and Felipe watching you lead and kind of it's, it's really that, you know, the passion behind what we do is to see reactions of students when they're like, you see that light bulb that click in their head, that's when it's like,
Chase Peckham:There's nothing better.
Jared Davidove:You get that feeling of I'm doing my job. Yeah.
Chase Peckham:You get by the one heckler and you see all the other blight bulbs go on. It's just, there's nothing better.
Jared Davidove:Exactly. So I'm looking forward to when we get to actually be back and do volunteerism. And kind of this. Yeah.
Chase Peckham:We can't wait to have your guys have your staff out and doing this in person again, though.
Jared Davidove:Hopefully sooner, rather than latter let me tell you.
Chase Peckham:I am tired of talking to people from my daughter's bedroom.
Felipe Arevalo:I don't want to see, the light bulb I want to see is not the little camera one, on my laptop.
Chase Peckham:I don't want this light from my iPhone sticking in my face anymore.
Jared Davidove:That was awesome Felipe I like that one.
Chase Peckham:Jared. Thanks a lot. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Jared.[inaudible].