Atomic Credit Union, Fayette County’s newest financial institution, has partnered with the Washington Court House City School District to bring a “student-run” credit union into three of the district’s four instructional buildings this school year.
Cherry Hill will have a credit union in the school, but it will not be run by students. Beginning in fifth grade, students can go through an interview process with an employee of Atomic Credit Union. Students that are hired will help work at the school credit union, where their peers can deposit and withdraw real money to and from these accounts.
This proposal was passed at Monday’s school board meeting. WCHCS Superintendent Tom Bailey spoke about what this means.
“Each of our buildings will have a credit union inside it that will have banking hours once a week. They will be real bank accounts, so the students could go to any Atomic Credit Union in the state. They will put employment applications out at the schools. So, fifth graders could apply and then sixth through eighth at the middle school and ninth through 12th for high school, Atomic Credit Union will come in and do all the interviews,” he said.
Atomic Credit Union has student-run credit unions in close to 50 school districts in the state, according to Bailey.
He continued, “Atomic Credit Union has the largest student-run Credit Union in the state of any financial institution. It’s a pretty nice deal, they provide everything. They provide an employee to be there with the kids to teach the skills, so there’s really no work, we just have to provide the space. They provide the tellers; they provide the bank books. They provide an app for the students so that they can do online banking. If the students have a birthday check at home, they can make a deposit by taking a picture of it. It’s a real account, and they even give them two dollars to open it up.”
Stay with the Record-Herald for more information throughout the school year regarding activities and events going on within the Washington Court House City School District.
