SCHOOL STORE EMPLOYS STUDENTS' MATH SKILLS

The workday and the school day are synonymous for some fifth-graders at Charleston's Warren E. Hearnes Elementary. That's because these students are responsible for keeping the school store up and running every morning.

"It's quite an operation," said fifth-grade teacher Mary Jane Whitehead, who acts as the store's general manager. "We probably make a couple of thousand dollars each year."

The school store is stocked with a variety of school supplies that employees sell from three locations every morning. Each day, Whitehead said, student managers make sure supplies are set up and ready for employees to sell in the first- and second-grade store, the third-grade store, and the fourth- and fifth-grade store.

"They do everything except talk to the companies," said Whitehead. "They decide what to sell and then they sell it. All I basically do is call the order in for them."

Whitehead said the school store has been very successful since it was created nine years ago by then assistant principal Mark McCutchen, who turned over store management to Whitehead after he became the school principal three years ago.

"I think it's a really good thing for the kids," said McCutchen, who is a former junior high school math teacher. "I wanted to have kids learn how to count money and keep inventory and just use their math in everyday life."

Whitehead said the students learn important skills they can use later in life by working in the store. First of all, she said, they learn how to handle responsibility. They also learn valuable business and writing skills, and how to stay out of trouble.

There are 23 students working in the store, Whitehead said, and they work from roughly 7:55 until 8:15 each morning. Their duties include setting up the store, getting supplies, rolling money, choosing inventory and making deposits.

Working in the school store is a volunteer service, but it is treated as a paying job. "We tell the students they have to treat this as if they were getting paid for it," McCutchen said. "They go through an application process at the beginning of the year, and they have to fill out an application and go through an interview. If they are not coming to school, they have to call in and let us know they won't be in for work."

All of the money made in the school store is used for special class prizes and to make school purchases. "All of the money is put back into the school," said McCutchen. "For example, students have bought running message boards to put in the hallways, and they bought a sound system for the music department."

Whitehead said class prizes include a monthly attendance award for the classroom with the best attendance award. Everyone from that class gets a free item from the store, she said.

Whitehead said a new store project this year is the Spotlight on a Teacher program. Store employees do a spotlight on a different teacher each week, so they can develop their writing skills. The students conduct an interview, then they go to the computer lab and write the story. They are also responsible for taking the teacher's picture.

"I'm trying to do lots of different things with them this year so they can develop more learning skills," she said.

Both Whitehead and McCutchen said students seem to have a healthy respect for their jobs, and they also seem to enjoy working.

"I think at the end of the year they realize it's not quite the easy job they thought it would be," Whitehead said. "But they still seem to have fun, and they learn some important skills while they're doing it."