Parker Upper School students learned practical life lessons on Wednesday, Jan. 16 when First Republic Bank stopped by the Linda Vista Campus for a financial literacy presentation. The first of the two-part presentation taught students about the importance of maintaining a healthy credit score and how banks and other institutions scrutinize potential borrowers’ financial histories.
Isaac Pollack, Managing Director (pictured), and Derek Lau, Relationship Manager of First Republic Bank, led the seminar and gave students four different case scenarios to determine who would likely receive a loan from the bank to purchase a new home. The case scenarios included credit score, monthly income, monthly housing expenses, other monthly debt, and savings.
The presentation was spearheaded by Madison Parker, Class of 2019, who brought up the idea at a student panel last year. Madison worked with Parker’s Head of Advancement Shara Freeman Hoefel, along with Isaac, to bring the financial literacy presentation to fruition.
“A financial literacy class has always been something I thought would be extremely beneficial for the Parker community,” said Madison. “It was great to work with Ms. Hoefel, and Mr. Pollack on the establishment of this course and I hope to continue growing this program in the future.”
Shara was also eager to help Madison bring this program to Parker students.
“Through our work in advancement, we have the opportunity to make connections and partnerships with institutions that add great value to our work with students. This was one of those moments,” said Shara. “We’re all about the student experience. Whenever there is an opportunity to advance the student experience through our partnerships we are eager and excited to work with those students to make it happen.”
The second part of the financial literacy presentation will be held Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 11 am. First Republic Bank will return to teach students about student lending for college and how to create and stick to a budget.
