In January 2019, NGPF released 11 Advocacy Case Studies featuring teachers’ brave efforts to expand access to personal finance instruction in their schools, districts and states. Today, we’re thrilled to recognize one of the 11 featured teachers as FinHero of the Month: Renee Nelson!

Ms. Nelson is a financial math teacher at KIPP NYC College Prep. She is also an adjunct professor at Syracuse University, where many of her high school students earn transferable college credit through her financial math elective.

Watch Renee's FinHero of the Month Reel (2:00) below!

Here are just a few of the steps Renee, a professional tinkerer, undertook to grow her program from a handful of students to over 50% of her school’s senior class:

• created parent workshops to ensure this critical content reached multiple generations
• hosted teacher financial wellness workshops for her colleagues to build a coalition of confident educators
• secured certification to teach seniors financial math for college credit in partnership with Syracuse University

Read Renee’s full case study to explore how she drove impressive growth in her financial math course over 6 hard-fought years.

About the Author

Christian Sherrill

Former teacher, forever financial education nerd. As NGPF's Director of Growth & Advocacy, Christian is laser-focused on our mission to guarantee all students a rigorous personal finance course before crossing the high school graduation stage. Having paid down over $40k in student loans in the span of 3 years - while living in the Bay Area on an entry level teacher's salary - he's eager to help the next generation avoid financial pitfalls one semester at a time.