School store under new management

The school store, now also known as the Blair Business Opportunity Center, which used to be run by Special Education teacher James Short, is under new management as part of a business class at Blair.

Cisco Networking Academy Instructor and Entrepreneurship Instructor Derek Sontz decided to add the school store to his class's curriculum as a way to incorporate real-life business experience into his course work.

The store is now run by Blair students who can get "hands-on" experience running a real business. Sontz is sponsored by The National Foundation For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) and uses their curriculum as a guide for his class. Sontz teaches two Entrepreneurship classes, which will be part of Blair's Entrepreneurship Academy next year.

The two classes work on a biweekly schedule and take turns managing the store during both lunches, "running everything from purchasing to marketing to accounting to how, what and when they sell [their items]," according to Sontz. Because of this, the "different classes have different [items to sell] and different prices," explained senior Cie'Ronna Winston.

The objective for each class is to make the highest net profit, but Sontz expects the overall experience will be much more valuable. "The outcome is that kids learn business life and teaching skills and learn about themselves and their peers," he said. "My overall goal as a teacher is not running the school store or satisfying the sponsors but to build a community and to motivate and inspire students."

Saskia Fagan, another senior in Sontz's entrepreneurship class, said that the new opportunities that the school store provides make a much better learning experience from the previous semester. "[Last semester], we talked a lot about what we wanted to do, but the school store is great because we actually get to do it," she said.

Overall, Winston said that the class is very rewarding. "This [class] is the backbone of making your own business. We get experience with the real world," she said. "Instead of just working on a plan, we have work on our plates to show for it."

Both of the classes and Sontz have big goals for the future of the school store. Senior Antoine Butler said that he thinks both classes plan to increase variety and quantity of goods sold in the future.

Sontz hopes to eventually set up a "school currency" that would be redeemable at the school store. Students would earn the currency as part of a new prize system that Sontz hopes to establish for teachers to administer. "The currency will encourage teachers to motivate students by focusing on positive attitudes and positive choices," Sontz said. Sontz also hopes to put the school store online in the future so that students may even be able to use PayPal to buy items through the school store at home. "These are big plans. I may be dead before it happens," joked Sontz.

If you have any suggestions for the school store, feel free to post your comments below, and they will be considered in any future decisions. For more information, visit the Networking Entrepreneurship Opportunity (NEO) website .