House Bill 1915 would have made financial literacy instruction a graduation requirement at public schools in Washington, but it failed to become law during the 2024 legislative session.  

Even so, some Spokane-area school districts still plan to increase their financial literacy offerings.

Beginning next year, Central Valley School District will start embedding financial literacy units into its existing K-12 social studies courses, which are taken by all students in the district.

“We’re moving toward a more intentional K-12 alignment using the financial literacy standards from Washington state,” says Kim Kyle, director of learning and curriculum at Central Valley School District.

Financial literacy refers to the ability to understand various financial skills and concepts, including budgeting, taxes, investing, debt, loans, and more.

The district will start by including the pilot financial literacy units into social studies courses at the middle school level next year, then will expand the new curricula into the elementary and high school levels over the course of the next three years, Kyle says.

The pending implementation of the financial literacy units is the result of a three-year grant through the state’s Financial Education Public-Private Partnership, which brings together representatives from both the public and private sectors to provide financial education for students in the public school system, according to the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction website.

“They offered a grant for us to study and start working toward a curriculum adoption for financial literacy,” Kyle says. “We get to spend the money that we get from this grant on actually training and educating our teachers and getting them up to speed on teaching financial literacy.”

Central Valley School District will adopt curricula from Next Gen Personal Finance and EverFi—a pair of online organizations that offer free financial literacy resources through software programs and grade-specific lesson plans.

Like with any other subject area, the state has standards for teaching financial literacy, Kyle adds.

“We’ve always felt like financial literacy is important in our district, and we’ve always had it in place in different parts of our curriculum, but what we really wanted to do is be more intentional,” Kyle says. “Whether (HB 1915) passed or it didn’t pass, we were still going to move forward with this initiative.”

Spokane Public Schools also has plans to increase financial literacy education.

“Next year, we’re going to try to pilot in all of our comprehensive high schools a new class called Life Readiness,” says Scott Kerwien, chief of student success at Spokane Public Schools. “We’ve heard from our students for years through our student voice groups that we don’t teach them how to ‘adult’ right.”

The comprehensive schools Kerwien is referring to are Ferris, Lewis & Clark, North Central, Rogers, and Shadle Park high schools.

“We’re going to offer at least one section of the class in every high school next year, and we’re currently developing that curriculum,” he says.

The course will include a curriculum intended to help students learn how to live independently, for example how to pay taxes or rent an apartment, Kerwien says.

“A huge component of that, obviously, is financial literacy,” he says.

The Life Readiness course won't be required for graduation.

“We are hoping to use the class as a pilot to support students in their post-high school planning, but if the Washington Legislature revisits the bill requiring financial literacy for graduation, then we would have a starting point,” Kerwien says.

Mead School District doesn’t have plans for additional financial literacy offerings currently, but it has offered financial literacy courses that count for career technical education, or CTE, credits at Mead and Mt. Spokane high schools since 2015, says Moleena Harris, director of data, assessment, and CTE at Mead School District.

The course, which is taken mostly by juniors and seniors at the two schools, isn't required for graduation, although students do need CTE credits to graduate.

“Our school district won’t require that until the state Legislature requires that,” Harris says. “And then, of course, we’d be supportive and get on board.”

The district’s Distributive Education Clubs of America—better known as DECA—classes also provide students with some exposure to financial education, Harris says.

“Students who take that course operate the student store at each of our high schools and they learn about what it takes to operate a business,” Harris says. “They get some real-world experience.”

In addition to their plans for next year and beyond, Central Valley School District and Spokane Public Schools also have existing financial literacy offerings.

Central Valley School District has been offering a personal finance course at the high school level for years, Kyle says. It also offers financial literacy lessons through its libraries at the middle school and elementary school levels.

Spokane Public Schools requires its eighth-grade students to take a class titled Career College Life Readiness, Kerwien says.

“That class is required for all eighth graders one semester,” he says. “Within that class, they do the financial literacy unit.”

Spokane Public Schools also offers some financial literacy instruction through some of its available CTE courses.

“Most high schools have some kind of business marketing class, whether they offer one year or four years,” he says. “They delve into the stock market and just basic business finance.”

Additional financial literacy lessons occasionally are included during advisory periods at Spokane Public Schools’ high schools.

“Throughout that, we try to pepper in some EverFi high-school-specific modular learning,” says Kerwien.

Sarah Carlson, the owner and founder of Spokane-based Fulcrum Financial Group LLC, says it’s important for people to learn about finances at an early age.

“Your relationship with money as a young person can have a profound effect on your future,” Carlson says. “The sooner that starts, the better.”

Because not all parents possess adequate financial knowledge, schools have an opportunity to provide a positive service for students, she says.

“So many young kids are getting their information from social media from people who do not know what they’re talking about,” Carlson says. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and it does a lot of damage.”

She says topics like the relationship between income and expenses, debt and when it’s appropriate, taxes, and the basics of different types of investments are important for young people to learn early on.

Carlson says she and other financial professionals could also provide schools with financial literacy lessons.

“I would even come in and be willing to put on presentations for any local school that wanted some help,” she says. “I could probably recruit other people in the industry to do it.”

Kerwien says that while financial literacy has always been important, there’s more of a spotlight on it now for two reasons.

“One is student interest—they’re wanting to be more informed, and that could just be a generational change,” he says. “The generation currently is really advocacy driven, civic engaged, and wants to learn more about how to just live their life.”

The other reason, he says, is the attention brought on by HB 1915.

“I think we need to demystify and be more transparent in what money means,” Kerwien says. “If we can’t have those conversations with students, it’s going to be more and more difficult.”