ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 18, 1995 TAG: 9512180039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
ROLLING in the dough: Nearly two dozen children are making and selling products as an economic community evolves at Huff Lane Micro Village, Roanoke's newest magnet school.
Early in the school year, fifth-grader Vince Hogrefe began publishing a magazine to earn money so he could buy goods at the marketplace and take field trips.
He's learning about the free enterprise system even before he gets out of elementary school.
Hogrefe has been selling his magazine for $5 a copy, and he's sold up to 100 copies of early editions. He's learning business principles quickly.
He plans to raise his price because he believes he can make more money without losing customers.
Hogrefe was the first entrepreneur in the Huff Lane Micro Village, a Roanoke school with its own economic system. But other businesses were soon started as pupils began to catch on to economic concepts.
Nearly two dozen children are now making and selling products ranging from bracelets to toy animals as the model economic community evolves at Roanoke's newest magnet school.
The former Huff Lane Intermediate School has been renamed and transformed into a micro-society school, which is designed to help children understand the relationship of school to the business world and real life.
In the micro village, the children participate in a functioning economy complete with its own currency. They deal in micro dollars in $1, $5 and $10 bills. Soon the school will print $20 bills.
Each child receives $1 a day for arriving at school on time with all supplies and prepared to begin studies. They must earn the rest of their money, either through the sale of products and services or employment in a job in the village.
The school has its own retail store and a weekly marketplace where the pupils can buy and sell products. At the store, they can buy paper, pencils, notebooks, candy, greeting cards and other goods. Businesses donated some of the merchandise.
At the marketplace, the children can sell only items they make themselves. They can't sell products they bring from home or purchased elsewhere.
The children have created their own government with their own mayor, and they have instituted a system of fines for violating rules of behavior on buses and in classrooms, halls and other places. They can be fined $5 for running in halls or making too much noise on the bus.
They run their own post office and mail system within the school and operate radio and television stations and a patrol service.
The students have the opportunity for role-playing and earning money by taking jobs in the school's bank, store, marketplace, post office, radio and television stations.
Most earn $10 to $15 in micro dollars weekly in their jobs. They also can earn money by performing services for teachers such as emptying trash cans, relaying messages and doing other chores.
"We get money for doing jobs. If we are bad, we have to pay a fine,'' said Tony Webb, a fifth-grader. ``I like it. It's different."
Candace Barham, another fifth-grader, said she is learning about business and economic principles.
"I like it a lot because it is an opportunity to learn what to do in real life," she said.
Barham is manager of the radio station, which broadcasts announcements, school news, weather, lunch menus and other information on the intercom each morning. The radio station also sells advertisements for birthday greetings and other messages.
Barham oversees the station's operations and makes certain that other children get to work on time. She is paid $12 a week.
The television station, which will begin broadcasting soon, is a closed-circuit operation. The equipment was purchased with federal funds for the magnet school.
Huff Lane is the only certified micro-society school in Virginia, and one of only 250 in the nation.
Most micro-society programs operate in middle or high schools; Huff Lane's children are in grades three through five.
"We knew the concept had been used mainly for older students, but we thought these children could handle it," said Don Webb, coordinator of the Huff Lane program.
Indeed, the children are quickly mastering the micro-village system, which was instituted this school year, Webb said.
"The fifth-graders catch on first, and then it seems to filter down and the third- and fourth-graders understand," he said. "They may not have all of the vocabulary, but they understand the concepts."
The magnet program supplements the regular curriculum for the children, who must still study reading, writing, math and other subjects.
When the Huff Lane faculty and school administrators were choosing a theme for the magnet school, Webb said, they decided to focus on skills needed to succeed anywhere.
"We already have good magnet schools in aerospace, performing arts and other things, but not everybody is going to the moon or Broadway," he said.
"So we decided to develop a magnet school that is based on the free enterprise system, and help the children acquire the business and social skills to function in the world."
For the system to succeed, Webb said, the children must perceive the school's money to be valuable and must take it seriously. Some micro-society schools have made mistakes with their currency and failed to provide a regular place for students to spend it, he said.
"Our children are perceiving it to be real. None of it has been defaced," he said. Some children have saved up to $200, but others spend most of what they earn, either to buy goods or pay expenses.
Hogrefe, the magazine publisher, said he's saving part of his money for business expenses such as printing and paying others who help him.
Not only does the school give the children opportunities to earn money, but it also offers special micro courses to teach them how to make products or offer services they can market.
Courses are offered in 24 subjects, ranging from cookie-making and leather crafts to keyboarding and dancing. Many are taught by volunteers who are knowledgeable in the field.
Each course lasts four weeks, with one-hour weekly sessions. The children pay up to $20 in tuition for a course. So many courses are being offered that some of the students have to go to the nearby Northminster Presbyterian Church because there aren't enough classrooms at the school.
"We try to teach them things they can use if they want to start a business or sell a product," Webb said.
Fifth-grader Jason Sarver is making money by teaching a course in T-shirt painting. The tuition is $10, and Sarver gets half of it.
Principal Dayl Graves says some parents seem as excited as the children about the micro-village system.
"We've heard some rave reviews from parents. They say their children are beginning to understand money and what it's all about," Graves said.
She says the program will become a drawing card for the school, which has an enrollment of 204.
The school is encouraging businesses to get involved in the program. Several, including First Union Bank and Kroger, already have donated services and products.
The micro courses and some other features of the system are optional for the children, but everyone participates - even the school's mayor, Virginia Wright.
Wright, a fifth-grader, beat out two other girls and one boy in a school election. She ran for mayor because she thought it would be neat to head the student government.
But she is just as interested in earning money. She helps in the school store, and she's taking a machine sewing course so she can make clothes to sell.
Said Webb: "The children are figuring out ways to make money. They are learning that poverty is uncomfortable in school - just as it is in real life."
LENGTH: Long : 148 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Fifth-graders Ashley Cline andby CNBMichael Ambrose make
Christmas cards to sell as part of their micro village concept. 2.
Trina Marshall rolls out cookie dough and James Gibson prepares
dough as the pupils make cookies to sell. Linda Dunlap, an aide,
supervisers. 3. In the micro village, pupils participate in a
functioning economy complete with its own currency. color.