Resources for Teachers

Extra Credit Union provides teachers with a variety of resources to help them in guiding students toward financial literacy, including:

• School Employee Grant Program to give staff members needed monies for class projects, field trips and more
• Banzai to give teachers a free, online financial literacy course to teach students
• Classroom presentations to provide teachers and their students with educational and fun learning experiences taught by our financial literacy expert
• Credit Union tours to get students out of the classroom and visiting Extra Credit Union, while engaging in a fun literacy activity

School Employee Grant Program
School employees, do you want to bring a cool program into your classroom, take your students on a field trip, or perhaps have them participate in an out-of-the-box learning experience to support your lesson plan?

Each year, we award $10,000 in grants to teachers and other school staff members {think counselor, janitor, principal or even an administrative assistant, etc.} who are members of our credit union. These grants offer school staff individual grants up to $2,000 to assist them in providing creative opportunities to impact their classroom, students or school.

Sorry we missed you. The grant application window has closed. Please check back in the fall to apply for a School Employee Grant.

Congratulations to our 2023 School Employee Grant winners:

• Mary Ann Gruda, Immaculate Conception Schools
• Erik Rothenhauser, St. Anne Catholic Grade School
• Megan Baranski, Roseville Middle School
• Michelle Keeran, Center Line High School
• Angela Gilchrist, Fitzgerald High School
• Rebecca Mulligan, Fitzgerald High School
• Joe Hayes, Center Line Public Schools
• Kathleen Saunders, Van Dyke Public Schools

Banzai online financial literacy
Extra Credit Union is “extra” committed to encouraging, empowering and providing resources for financial literacy education in local schools. In fact, we even pay for our partner schools to be able educate students on important and basic financial skills. One of the various ways Extra Credit Union supports the schools in that capacity is through Banzai.

Extra Credit Union provides this valuable, hands-on resource to teachers for free to help them teach real-life financial situations to students through online simulations and workbooks—that’s right, we cover the entire cost. Students learn about math, life skills, computer science, personal finance/economics, and more. The program works best for grades 8-12 and fits into many curricula.

Members of our financial education team visit each classroom to introduce the program and share information on how credit unions operate. The staff member follows up and returns at a later date to answer questions and award a certificate of completion to each student who completes the course. Students also receive an incentive to open an account.

Interested? Email our financial education team at financialeducation@extracreditunion.org.

Classroom presentations
Teachers: We’re here for you! Extra Credit Union will help you educate your students through delivering classroom presentations. We will customize a presentation that works around your lesson plan, specific needs and student age/grade. Presentations can be made on a variety of topics related to money and finances for kindergarten-12th grade, including:

• Saving, spending and sharing
• Opportunity cost and needs vs. wants
• Credit and its impact on your future
• Checking accounts
• Teachers will choose the presentation topic, length and how often you want us to present. We also will consult with you to select the appropriate industry tools for the student population.

To arrange for a classroom presentation, email our financial education team at financialeducation@extracreditunion.org.

Credit union tours
Extra Credit Union invites all teachers and their students, student groups, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and others to visit our main office to take a tour and participate in a financial literacy activity. It makes for a fun and educational field trip.

We’d also love to come and support you at your school. We are honored when teachers and others invite us to attend their student events where we enjoy sharing financial literacy information and providing enjoyable activities around the topic.

To arrange for a credit union tour or for an Extra Credit Union representative to visit your event, email our financial education team at financialeducation@extracreditunion.org.