Everett Public Schools highlights student-driven financial literacy and moves to statewide planning platform

Everett Public Schools on April 28 updated the board on progress toward its strategic plan, focusing on personalized learning and a new push to teach financial literacy beginning in elementary grades. District staff described classroom lessons, school-based book bins and a student-led curriculum that has reached nearly 300 students.

The presentation, led by Dr. Jeannie Willard and Cali Spear, described a district effort to give students more options and agency in learning and to create systems that sustain personalization. "We're really talking about students making choices about their educational journey," Willard said, stressing connections from elementary financial-literacy lessons through high-school planning and career-readiness seminars.

The district said it has developed an aligned financial-literacy scope and sequence for secondary courses and supporting lessons and materials for elementary classrooms. "Each school has a bin of financial literacy books for each grade level that is housed at their building," Spear said, noting the collection includes more than 50 titles and Spanish-language options. Staff described a train-the-trainer model in which cohort teachers bring lessons back to building teams and embed short, optional trainings into staff meetings to build teacher confidence and sustainability.

A central feature of the presentation was a short video from two Henryham Jackson High School seniors, Lana Whitinger and Trisha Misra, who built "Habits of Wealth and Learning," a set of interactive lessons and games. In the recorded presentation, the students said they delivered nine lessons across 15 classes and reached "nearly 300 elementary school students," reporting post-test results showing a 92% accuracy rate on assessed items and an 83% of students showing overall performance improvement compared with pre-tests. "We saw a significant improvement in financial understanding," Misra said in the video. Teachers in the pilot gave an average satisfaction rating the students reported as 9.9 out of 10.

District staff and board members framed the student work as both instructional and leadership development. "Seeing kids really engage with older students who were teaching them made it really meaningful," Willard said.

The presentation also covered the district—s move from Naviance to SchoolLinks for the high-school-and-beyond plan. Willard said SchoolLinks is a statewide platform that will let students begin planning in sixth grade and carry those plans across districts if they move. She demonstrated an interactive "game of life" module that lets students model careers, degrees, family and lifestyle choices and see projected income and costs. "It gives students a real opportunity to try out some of their ideas about what their future plans might mean financially," she said.

Willard and Spear also described partnerships with community organizations (including a financial-education partnership and local credit-union involvement) and use of Equal Opportunity Schools student-survey data to identify trusted adults and recruit students into rigorous coursework, including a pre-IB cohort being established at Cascade High School.

Board members asked about whether state-level recommendations will require a standalone financial-literacy course or embedded options; staff said the State Board of Education work group had issued recommendations with several options and that the district is watching for final guidance.

The district said next steps include scaling lesson materials, expanding translated resources and continuing the train-the-trainer rollout so more elementary teachers can offer short, aligned financial-literacy lessons.

The board did not take a formal vote on the presentation materials; staff characterized the session as progress reporting and next-step planning.