High School Bank
National Grand Bank is committed to the financial education of the youth of Marblehead.
National Grand Bank is very proud to support and to be an integral part of the Marblehead High School business education curriculum. In September 2001, Joan Stomatuk, business education teacher at MHS, with the support of the school administration asked National Grand Bank to be a part of a new elective, Fundamentals of Banking. She dreamed of having a full-function bank at the high school to further enrich her classroom curriculum. As plans evolved for the new Marblehead High School building, the administration allotted space for a full-service branch of National Grand Bank. This branch was built (including an ATM), and is now run by the students enrolled in the Fundamentals of Banking class.
The students are closely supervised and tutored by NGB staff, and they learn about:
- The computer systems that support a bank
- Procedures for processing deposits and withdrawals related to various types of accounts
- How to verify the accuracy of one’s work and balance the cash in the drawer
- The challenges of customer service
- The value of attention to detail and good record-keeping
- The need to respect customer privacy
The High School Bank has limited hours and is only accessible to high school students, faculty, and school/town employees with authorized access to the building. However, this captive customer community, combined with several items of school business, provides a meaningful base of transactions to challenge the student tellers.
Over the years, it has been gratifying to see students engage in this fundamental business activity. They become better-informed consumers of financial services, and there have been clear cases where working in the High School Bank helped direct career paths.
