Life is Life!

#072 The Push to Add Financial Education to K-12 Learning With Rebecca Gallagher

February 12, 2021 Felipe Arevalo, Chase Peckham, Rebecca Gallagher Season 3 Episode 21
Life is Life!
#072 The Push to Add Financial Education to K-12 Learning With Rebecca Gallagher
Show Notes Transcript

As we've discussed on the podcast before, personal financial education for the next generation on issues of credit, debt, budgeting and how to become financially responsible adults is incredibly important. This week the guys sit down with Rebecca Ivonovich Gallagher, the chair of the California Jump$tart Coalition, whose mission is to further personal financial knowledge among California students and to empower partners, educators and communities to implement financial education in classrooms. Rebecca's passion for the subject is palpable. A former accounting professional, teacher and now a specialist in workforce development for the Sonoma County Office of Education, Rebecca shares exciting Jump$tart programs such as the Financial Foundation for Educators, and introduces us to the incredible volunteers driving the mission and introducing financial knowledge to our youth.

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Intro:

[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 today, Phil and I had the great opportunity to sit down with a true advocate for personal finance in schools. She is the chairman of the board of the California jumpstart coalition, Rebecca Evanovich Gallagher. She was amazing.

Felipe Arevalo:

Yeah, it was a great conversation and it was great to learn all the different programs that are out there and a little bit of the history as well.

Chase Peckham:

So excited to have you here today, Rebecca. Um, you know, I, We met, um, six months back or so when you were first talking to me about joining the California jumpstart coalition, and I've been what's December, I believe, and I've done some workshops with you and I am so passionate about what California jumpstart does. If you could give us a little background first on yourself and then how you got involved with the California jumpstart coalition.

Rebecca Gallagher:

I have been in education for almost 20 years, but it was the second career for me, tells you how old I am. Um, uh, because I did accounting work for, for most of my early twenties. And, uh, once I had a family, I decided to change that up a little. Um, and I was interested in working with at-risk youth particularly. So, um, I went back to college, got a teaching credential and, um, and began my teaching career. Um, and while I was teaching because I have a minor in economics, um, I was very eager to teach economics. And I finally did. I was finally able to do that, um, and teach business as well. And it was just in terms of personal finance education that struck me and being a person already in their forties. Um, and knowing how important managing your finances is. I thought we aren't teaching personal finance. We're not integrating it at all. And so it was my opportunity as an economics teacher, um, who chose not to teach AP economics because I knew I wouldn't be able to put some of the practical stuff in there because you really have to teach all the scope and sequence you're teaching to the test, essentially. So it was my choice to do that, um, and integrate it. It just was a natural integration, uh, in the economics and business curriculum. And when I taught business entrepreneurship, um, that was a natural to talk about managing your finances. Um, and, and then in economics, um, generally I would integrate it when we would get to fiscal policy and talking about the concepts about fiscal policy, um, how and taxation, um, and that was, for me, it was a natural way to introduce, um, personal finance concepts

Chase Peckham:

As a parent when your child was growing up. Did that ever cross your mind at the time that, that your kids weren't getting personal finance in school?

Rebecca Gallagher:

Well, not exactly. um not exactly however, we, my husband and I, for whatever reason, we decided not to give an allowance. We weren't allowance people and it, and you know, it's interesting because personal finance has a lot to do. Um, but the way you manage money, um, is it's so behavioral. And by the way, I really enjoyed listening to the, um, interview, the Talk Wealth to Me with Andrea Ferraro,

Chase Peckham:

She's amazing isn't she?

Rebecca Gallagher:

Back at the beginning of January. And, um, yeah, she was amazing. It was great. Cause you, you, you all really touched on the different, um, relationships that, you know, really relational attitudes people have about money and the fact that, you know, um, a lot of the way we learn that sort of stuff is how we were raised. Um, and I, I was raised in a family, a very working class family, um, and it just, wasn't, it just wasn't spoken about, you know, your, the money matters were personal to your, your mom and dad, nobody talked about it. So that was my experience. I think for my generation may be very common. And then as I said, once, my husband and I were raising two children, uh, we opted not to, um, give them an allowance, um, for whatever reason, I don't really remember, but we did have budgets, uh, back to school and, you know, we would give them a budget for what they could spend. Um, and I, I remember that being, getting very tricky when they got into middle school and they wanted the$70 sneakers and that was a while ago. So that's

Chase Peckham:

Just like a business the, as you grow, the, the budget can grow.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. So we give them a fixed amount and they'd have to do that when it, when I, when we felt like it gave more meaning to them, but would it have been great for them to be having personal finance right along? Absolutely. Um, and they, and my two grown kids, um, are also, and it was, I heard in your interview, Andrea are very different personality wise when it comes to money. Why that is, it's hard to say. However, that's where I think personal finance education, if they, if we began in the early grades and right through school, up until high school, certainly in high school where they're getting the real nuts and bolts of it. Um, and, and seeing that it is a skillset that you need to have to navigate your adulthood. Um, I think it would have guided provided a guide to my one kid who wasn't was a spender by nature. Um, and even the one that's a saver by nature. Um, it still would have informed them more, more, um,

Chase Peckham:

Absolutely it gives you that skill set. And it also helps you develop a mindset for how you're going to go about your business.

Rebecca Gallagher:

But there are, you know, um, there are obstacles, you know, the jumpstart coalition our, our mission is to promote personal finance. Um, and what's interesting, however, in, in the years that I've been on the board, which has been about a decade and I'm the current chair, um, what's interesting is at the conferences that we have chosen to have exhibit tables at it's, we've had many interesting and informative conversations. Um, a real standout is when we have worked, what's called the California School Boards Association conference. And that's attended by school board members and administrators. And interestingly, um, just anecdotally the conversations we would have at our exhibit table almost to a person, the board members would be looking at each other and saying, we don't teach that. Do we? Why, why don't we teach personal finance education, at our district? And it was a very common theme. Um, so we knew the, the, and this goes back, like I said, I started about a decade ago. So we've heard that many, many times, but what we've also heard, interestingly, sometimes from school board members, oftentimes from administrators and many times from teachers, is that, well, you know, personal finance education, are you talking about like dummy math, like consumer math so that kids don't have to have the rigor, you know, of heavy mathematics. And of course our response was known. That's not true at all. We don't get in the way of that. And, um, I mean, to the point where I've even had teachers of advanced math, when we've worked the mass council, um, conferences saying, Oh, well, we don't. Yeah, no, thank you. You know, we don't need to pay attention to that because our kids are going to college. And I remember having a conversation with one, I had to pull her aside and say, hold on just a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Chase Peckham:

They don't learn that there either by the way.

Felipe Arevalo:

Right.

Rebecca Gallagher:

If your kids or your students are all going to colleges, that's super, however..

Chase Peckham:

In fact, that's where we all learn on our own.

Felipe Arevalo:

That's where we all learn the hard way.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. That's where you begin to learn the hard way. Exactly. So, so that's one of the, you know, one of the, uh, pieces of the puzzle, um, that's, that's challenging, um, about pers about the advancing personal finance education and, and pushing towards a requirement in California.

Felipe Arevalo:

It's interesting that you mentioned starting at a younger education, uh, as well, because oftentimes, you know, we hear people say, when we offer a presentation, Oh, these, these kids are freshmen in high school, then I don't think they need it yet. But if you wait until junior or senior year to start providing the financial education, you've missed out on 10 years worth of possible, uh, instruction and guidance, those younger kids, uh, can benefit as well, right?

Rebecca Gallagher:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But really those kids that are nearing their high school graduation, particularly those kids that might be, um, tend to be the spender types rather than the saver types. Um, it could really help them if they'd had a considerable background in, in personal financial management and understanding it, the real nuts and bolts of it, particularly before, um, before they get student loans.

Chase Peckham:

So, as you mentioned before, you are the current chairman of the California jumpstart coalition, give us a little background on, on, uh, well, California jumpstart coalition, and then jumpstart

Rebecca Gallagher:

In, in general. Well, I want to encourage any of the listeners to take a look at our website.

Chase Peckham:

It's a great one.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Which is cajumpstart.org. Um, all lower case so C you know, wwwCAjumpstart.org. And, um, we've got a terrific website that we updated about a year and a half ago, and it's got a lot of resources and a lot of information, and you can see what we're up to. Um, we are the California state coalition of a nation wide group of 50 coalitions, including, and then the district of Columbia. And in fact, national jumpstart, our lead coalition is headquartered in Washington DC. Um, they've been, they've been at the advancement of personal finance education for 25 years, just last year in 2020. Um, pardon me in 2019, actually it was 2019. We celebrated, uh, California jumpstart coalition celebrating its 20th year of being coalition that promoted personal finance in California. And over those years, our efforts were not large, primarily due to funding. We are a nonprofit. Um, it was a small group of people that were very passionate 20 years ago that started this coalition in California, well-educated folks, many of the attorneys and, and, and CPAs that had, uh, having a deep understanding of, of, uh, personal finance as in personal financial management as an important skill. So they built that coalition over time, um, slowly, you know, doing, you know, getting speakers out into elementary schools or high schools or whatever. Um, it, it evolved over time. And then fortunately in, in 2017, we were a coalition that applied for and received grant funding. And the funding came from, um, the, in the, in the fallout of the great recession, the big financial institutions had to pay some restitution and, and what they were looking for and what they were actually mandated to do was to fund, um, organizations that would provide personal financial information or education. And so we were lucky enough to get some, uh, fairly substantial amount of grant funding that we pay, we spend for specific programs in the state.

Chase Peckham:

So if you could please touch on those programs. I know that the California jumpstart coalition has, um, really one focus in mind, but there are a variety of programs.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yes. And what I want to clarify, and for those that visit our website is we are representative of a number of partner organizations. Okay. There are many, many organizations and institutions that provide personal finance education in California and throughout the United States, many financial institutions, uh, many nonprofit organizations, you know, there's a number of them and we, the federal reserve bank, the SEC, I mean, uh, the FDIC so beginning in 2017, uh, we worked with our national coalition, national jumpstart to, uh, create our own version of a teacher training. Teachers don't want to teach something. They don't feel Well-versed in.

Chase Peckham:

Oh boy, have we run into that?

Rebecca Gallagher:

Right. Um, so our financial foundations for educators program, which we began in 2017, has now provided personal finance ed education to hundreds of teachers for their own. We're wanting them to feel more comfortable sitting with the concepts about spending and planning and risk management and credit and debt and saving and investing. Those are our primary primary modules and, and Chase. You were kind enough and did a terrific job talking about credit and debt. Um, at our most recent our, in our first, I might add virtual presentation of financial foundations for educators. Um,

Chase Peckham:

It was a blast. It was a great group.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. It was a great group. It was the LA County Office of Education, a group of teachers we had about 30 teachers. And that was good. Uh, on a zoom 30 feels like a lot.

Chase Peckham:

Sure does.

Rebecca Gallagher:

And even though it didn't have the dynamism of, of our live events, maybe some of your audience that will listen to this, uh, maybe teachers that actually went to one, uh, but, uh, the live events were terrific, very engaging, but we did the best we could. And thanks to presenters, like you Chase, you made it very engaging when you were talking about credit and debt.

Chase Peckham:

Thank you. It was a great group. I mean, the instructors were top shelf. It really, really good.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. And we, we, we hold to that. So the jumpstart coalition, it's a unique training because there's, again, as I mentioned, we have a lot of partner organizations that have curriculum that, um, teach teachers how to teach the curriculum. But again, if teachers don't feel confident in the subject matter, they're not going to want to do it. They're going to avoid it. And I know that I, I wouldn't have wanted to teach a trigonometry when I was a teacher, because I wasn't very good at it back in the day.

Felipe Arevalo:

Yeah. It's like I did tutoring in college. It was like, do you want a tutor to the calculus kids? No. I don't want to touch that.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah yeah yeah.

Felipe Arevalo:

I need like algebra one. I can do that. Spanish, biology, but calculus no I'm good.

Chase Peckham:

I guess that comes into question is, is the idea of scholastics versus training for the future? Uh, just as a, as a human being. And there's got to be an argument there. Um, what is your opinion on that as being a parent and a teacher?

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. Thanks. Excellent question. When I came into teaching, it was 1997. That's when I decided to, you know, go into teaching. And it was literally my first job at a big comprehensive high school up here in Sonoma County. It was literally the year that they were beginning to close the shop classes. They were, they were moving to a model of, of career pathways, but they were literally closing of the hands-on stuff that was going on for high school students for forever, for decades. Um, the pathway model was more oriented to moving students into post-secondary higher education because the idea of the pathway program was to at least get you through a two year nursing degree. For instance, if you were in a medical pathway, um, over the years that that schools in California developed that, um, they didn't see the kind of traction. In other words, the articulation of kids out in these pathways into the intended path in post-secondary, because oftentimes that post-secondary path takes you away from maybe the nuts and bolts or working with your hands and, and pushes you more into a lot of academic stuff. Okay. These are broad generalizations I'm making.

Chase Peckham:

Right.

Rebecca Gallagher:

So, but for, for my, so in my experience, it was interesting. And particularly since I, as I mentioned earlier, chose to work with at-risk high school students, um, there were any number of them that would say to me, Gallagher, why do I need to know this? I just want to be able to work with my hands. I'm really good on with cars. I'm really good with this or that. So long story short over the arc of my time in education, the acknowledgement that not all students are going to go, certainly not, not all are going to go onto a four year, four years of college or more, but we can make sure that these are quality programs. And some of you have heard about CTE or Career Technical Education. Um, fortunately in the last decade, we have moved back into appreciating that again, promoting college for all students is, is the right thing to do, but it can, it can look like a two year certification in industrial trade technology.

Chase Peckham:

Right.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Where that individual can get out there and work with their hands, or you get..

Chase Peckham:

Over the years. I've actually changed my mind on that as well. I was a everybody. You need to go to college because that, you know, organizations are hiring people with four year degrees, and that has changed as well. Not just the idea of the pathways for the student, but organizations are trying to be more hyper-focused on people that are doing what they, they don't want to train as much anymore. They want to hire people that can come in and do the job. And if nobody has that training, who's going to do that.

Rebecca Gallagher:

That's right. Yeah. And interestingly, um, just anecdotally, my, my daughter-in-law works for, um, a Silicon Valley investor type. And when she got the job, she has a bachelor's degree and very smart young woman, but she didn't have an advanced degree. And when she got the job with this, this, uh, company, I remember asking her my goodness, that's amazing that you got a job like that. It's, it's kind of a Silicon Valley investment type job, which he's doing excellently. I might add with had a master's degree. I had an MBA, my gosh. And interestingly, her boss, didn't, he wasn't looking to hire people that were necessarily MBAs. He, he was looking for other qualities besides just, you know, a diploma that you got or a degree that you earned. Um, he was looking for something more than that.

Chase Peckham:

That actually makes me feel a little bit like there's, there are more opportunities for all kinds of people in that that really is important because we can't all just be pushed, just like, you know, your kids, our kids all have different money personalities. Everybody's got their strengths and weaknesses not everybody's going to go through that same round hole, uh, you know, on that pathway, through the four-year degree. It just, it, it makes me feel like more kids have a chance to not only make a living for themselves, but do something that they are good at instead of just going down the, the career path of this is what I do because I get a paycheck. I think that's incredibly important.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Well, and after all, we all know that what we'll wind up doing. If, if we're going to be happy in what we're doing to make a living, you got to do something you like.

Chase Peckham:

Absolutely.

Rebecca Gallagher:

You got to do something that comes naturally to you to a certain extent. Um, in recent years, once I moved out of teaching and that was about 10 years ago, um, I've been in workforce development for our County office up here. And, um, any, any number of kids I've just said, you know, look, you know what you've loved to do? What have you always loved to do you know, what is something you've really, really, always liked doing? Oh, I've always liked reading or I've always liked cooking ever since I was a little kid, you know, so, you know, we all know. And so guiding, getting yourself to where the lucky few of us that have gotten ourselves to where we're really enjoy what we're doing. That's great. I mean, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday, Tom Brady, doing what he loves.

Felipe Arevalo:

We were just talking about that.

Chase Peckham:

Amazing isn't it?

Felipe Arevalo:

And, and he's done it longer than, than anyone else, uh, you know, in that position. And it has a lot to do with the fact that, you know, I've heard him on, on interviews, uh, I think most recently on a Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert. And he sounds like he loves to play football and not just play football. He loves the grind that goes along the practice and all that. So it is, if you find something you love to do it, it easier to do longer and better.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. The money just comes, you know, I mean, if you're really doing something that you're passionate about, but, but getting back to personal finance education, there was, there was a quote, Andrea, my colleague board colleague, Audra Ferraro. Did so excellently on your program. When she, I love this phrase, I wrote it down, um, about personal finance education."Why is it still the special, extra?"

Chase Peckham:

Right.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Why is it still special extra it, because really it is a life skill. Financial management is a life skill, and you can take any number of people that come to the San Diego Financial Literacy Center that maybe are in their fifties or sixties. And they just have not prepared for retirement, for instance,.

Chase Peckham:

Continent. Yeah. More often than we would like.

Felipe Arevalo:

Yeah, we constantly hear, Oh, like when we tell older individuals that were presenting in colleges or high schools, people say, Oh, that's great. I wish I'd have had that when I was in school.

Chase Peckham:

I like to say that I, I totally believe I mentioned home economics earlier and that in the fifties, sixties, probably even the seventies was about cooking and that kind of thing. But I believe that that's the 21st century home economics is personal finance. That, I mean every single person, whatever pathway you're going down, all of us, every single one of us, no matter where you're from, what your views are, you're going to have to take care of yourself financially. At some point, it's our job to teach those fundamentals.

Rebecca Gallagher:

It, it absolutely is. And, and, you know, before the great recession back in 2004, 2005, I remember teaching economics and talking to students and saying, okay, here's a little tidbit for every dollar that the average American earns right now. So I'm talking 2003, four for every dollar they earn, they spend a dollar and 25 cents. And that would always wake kids up the economic students.

Chase Peckham:

I would bet.

Rebecca Gallagher:

The ones that were kind of snoozing

Felipe Arevalo:

I wish I would have been in your economics class back then.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Think about that. What does that mean? And it wasn't hard for them to, Oh, well then that means they've got no money. And then there are those, those pretty scary statistics. Now that me being a baby boomer only about a quarter, maybe generously, 30% of baby boomers are really prepared financially for retirement.

Chase Peckham:

Yeah.

Rebecca Gallagher:

And we don't even know how that's going to play out.

Chase Peckham:

No.

Rebecca Gallagher:

So that's, you know, there's plenty of scary stories about personal, the lack of personal finance education. So, you know, getting back to our foundations for, uh, Foundations, for Financial Foundations, for educators program, reaching out teachers, getting them comfortable, um, having, getting them to have a little fun while we're teaching them core concepts, um, encouraging them to be advocates on their, on their campuses, um, for personal finance education. Um, I think, and as we move to having our FFE program to more, um, CSU, California State University Campuses, I actually have in the pipeline for our virtual version, uh, two campuses that want to have the virtual version come, um, come to them because they've hosted live ones. So, uh, Cal State University Stanislaus and Cal state university Fullerton, are, um, going to be on our calendar for bringing it. And my focus on that is what I know being in education is that California, as many States are just taking California recruitment and retention of teachers has just continues to get more difficult. And we don't even know how it's all going to, after all of this pandemic disruption, we don't even know. So what we want to do is bring good financial sound, financial education, and encouraging advocacy for teachers in training. So they go right into the profession, having some confidence and maybe they will not only have confidence for their own benefit, which is important, but they will have enough confidence to be able to teach personal finance or at least integrate some of the concepts of personal finance education.

Chase Peckham:

Now a big part of the California jumpstart coalition is, is fighting for legislation. Correct. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I know that that's gotta be a, it's a very long path to be, to be walked.

Rebecca Gallagher:

It's a very long path to be walked. Um, there has been legislation that comes and goes in Sacramento. Um, there's two things I think in your listening audience wouldn't know this. Um, we have, I don't know, it's in the thousands of school districts in the state of California. There's a lot of pride in the autonomy of those school districts and their school boards. So mandates from Sacramento are not easily accepted.

Chase Peckham:

I understand that a bit.

Rebecca Gallagher:

So when, when the coalition actually had the opportunity to meet with some legislative aids, a couple of years ago in Sacramento, you know, they were saying, well, you know, the thing is, is when it comes to education, that's a reality that districts like their autonomy. Okay. Um, so it's very difficult to, you know, push something at them and force it, um, but also they're also still very wedded to the A to G requirements in, in California high schools. Again, the, the, the focus, which, as I mentioned with CTE and, and some of the newer trend, there's still a lot of push to make sure kids get, are prepared to go to the CSU or the UC.

Chase Peckham:

Sure.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Right out of high school. So it's made, pushing through legislation difficult, but interestingly career technical education in their state standards in California requires some elements of personal finance. So those kids that are in CTE programs in their high schools and then are articulating into the community college system and maybe beyond, um, they are already getting a little bit of personal finance.

Chase Peckham:

I did not know that.

Rebecca Gallagher:

A little bit, but it's in the standards now standards again, um, you know, how many boxes do you have to tick in order to, you know, it gets a little vague, but at least it's there. Um, when we, when the social science, uh, framework was history, social science framework was rewritten and adopted a few years back in the economics curriculum. There was a lot of resistance to, you know, calling economics personal finance or putting too much. But interestingly, the, the adoption included using personal financial language to explain economic concepts. Now that's, that's a framework. It doesn't, that's not a requirement, but it, it gives teachers the opportunity to, in their economics class to rephrase something like opportunity costs in terms of spending money on this or spending money on that. So it makes it less abstract. So, so in the meantime, our legislative committee, um, is working on the best way in which we can take sort of the groundswell of advocacy that we've built over the years, particularly with our FFE Financial Foundations for Educators get enough interest around the state, keep growing that. And so that we have a real grassroots community of people that advocate for personal finance, and then begin to form a coalition to have our coalition be a coalition that then can advanced some work to advance some legislation in, in Sacramento, whatever that might look like. And I would encourage your listeners that think that personal finance education is important to first of all, make your voice heard, send us an email at info@cajumpstart.org. If you're really interested about being part of a legislative effort to get personal finance education, at least on the radar in Sacramento, um, send us any email. We we'd love to, um, hear what you have to say about that. Also find out if you're, if you're on a school board or if you go to PTA meetings or you're involved in your kids' schools at all, or your grandchildren's schools, make your voice heard. If you think this is important again, that gets back to that groundswell, that, that grassroots effort to encourage our legislators in Sacramento to at least begin to consider some way in which we can make it a reality for K-12 students in, in California, whatever form that might take. Oh I apologize for that.

Chase Peckham:

That's all right.

Felipe Arevalo:

That's all right.

Chase Peckham:

I love the ringer that old school ring.

Rebecca Gallagher:

I'm sorry.

Chase Peckham:

That's alright. Is that your cell phone? Oh, I love the ring though. I it's that old classic. It brings back my childhood. You know, Rebecca, finally, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, and you can talk, please talk to this as we wrap up, but there is a thirst for youth to know this information as well. Wouldn't you say? And I know that I met virtually of course, but a young man who is now a kind of a pseudo part of the board, uh, in discussing th th that viewpoint that, that there, this isn't just about adults and families and parents wanting their kids to learn this. There are kids out there that genuinely want to learn this. We just had a young man from like a sophomore at UC SD, uh, University of California, San Diego, who got in contact with us and just wants to help teach freshmen because he didn't learn this stuff. And he's now involved with us and it's been great. So there is a thirst for it.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Oh, there absolutely is a thirst for it. And we all know that there's a need for it. We all know that. So, so, you know, the San Diego Financial Literacy Center, I was, I just have to say that San Diego has been rather progressive compared to other counties compared to my County Sonoma, um, in, in having something like the San Diego Financial Literacy Center is an ordinary resource. Um, they're, uh, one of your community colleges, uh, Cuyamaca College for years has done a teacher training, uh, financial education training for teachers out there.

Chase Peckham:

Felipe is a proud graduate.

Felipe Arevalo:

I did my community college at Cuyamaca.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Ok you know, that, um, also San Diego through, um, through the resources from the community was able to build a facility for the absolutely extraordinary programs offered by Junior Achievement. I did a tour of it a couple of years ago, and it's just extraordinary. This facility that's right there in San Diego. And it just, it's sad that during, of course the shutdown, that's probably not getting much use, but again, San Diego has it. And San Diego Unified School district over the years has some years ago, about 10 years ago, they were actually, they wrote their own curriculum. They were trying to introduce it into the, into the schools and we're in fact doing it, but it's, didn't really get the kind of traction. Anyway. The point is it's San Diego County is you can be proud of the fact that you've got a lot of resources down there that other counties don't have.

Chase Peckham:

Yeah. junior achievement is fantastic. And that facility you're right, is great. My fifth graders in San Diego, all fifth graders go through that BizTown and they all simulate professions. My son was, uh, was the vice president of a bank. And he, he learned, he said, dad, that's stressful. I don't think I want to do that. You have to wear a coat and tie and everything. And he and my daughter's not going to get to do it. She's in fifth grade this year, and she's going to miss her chance. But you know, it's such as the life of COVID.

Rebecca Gallagher:

Yeah. So I just, again, and what I encourage your listeners to take a look at our, our, uh, the jumpstart website, uh, CAjumpstart.org, um, send us an info at, uh, email about your interest in personal finance and how we can, uh, how you, your voice can be heard about the outreach that we're trying to build here in California.

Chase Peckham:

Yeah. It takes a village the more voices, the better Rebecca, thank you so much for being here today. The work you do is amazing. And I wanted to point out one last thing. And you mentioned this at the very beginning, and I'm, I really will be upset with myself if I don't mention it. You said you changed course in your career in kind of the middle of your professional life. And I just wanted to let everybody know it can be done. I did it. I mean, I, I worked in major league baseball for 11 years before I got into the world of personal finance. And you can recreate yourself. It's, you're not stuck. You can, you can, uh, do where change passions, change, things change, right? And, and, and your situations may change. You have the opportunities, uh, you can make change as well, but it's scary for people.

Rebecca Gallagher:

And it's scary, scary times right now. So, but, but yeah, that's, that's a great thing to leave off with that. Um, there, there are possibilities out there and you just need to think beyond the box.

Chase Peckham:

You've done it three times. Basically. That's phenomenal. Good for you. That's really, really great. Again, Rebecca Gallagher. Uh, thank you so much for being here.

Rebecca Gallagher:

It's been my privilege. Thanks so much.

Chase Peckham:

You're very welcome. Thanks a lot. Phil. That was a lot of fun as always really, really insightful stuff. And you know, one thing that we want to get out there is if you enjoyed this episode, please follow us. If you're, if you're enjoying the podcast, leave a comment, follow us on wherever you find your podcast, but we love coming into your home every week.

Felipe Arevalo:

Absolutely. Yeah. Follow us on social media and send us ideas, uh, future episodes and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, that way it'll help others find our show as well.

Chase Peckham:

Absolutely. Thanks for joining Talk Wealth to Me.[Inaudible].