Junior Achievement
Interviewing as a team and dominating!
Students preparing for Stock Market!
Anyone for Career Bingo?
Studying for the STEM competition!
Desert Heights Preparatory Academy has partnered with Junior Achievement of Arizona ("JA") and starts implementing its programs in 5th grade. We incorporate their curriculum to allow students to make a real life connection and to have some creative insight on career fields for the future.
JA's volunteer-delivered programs foster work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills, and use experiential learning to inspire students to dream big and reach their potential. With programs designed to help students learn to manage their money, be ready to enter the workplace and to think innovatively, Junior Achievement of Arizona is the perfect partnership for DHPA. While at DHPA, students have an opportunity to participate in the class curriculum activities and may qualify to attend the workshops, competitions, and events off campus.
Junior Achievement by Grade Level
JA Career Speakers Series
In JA Career Speakers Series, a volunteer guest speaker visits the classroom and shares information about his or her career, work, and education experience. The speaker may bring props, samples of his or her work, or other visuals to help engage students. Activities and implementation design will vary based on grade level. This event is part of the JA Work and Career Readiness Pathway.
JA BizTown
JA BizTown combines in-class learning with a day-long visit to a simulated town. This popular program allows elementary school students to operate banks, manage restaurants, write checks, and vote for mayor. The program helps students connect the dots between what they learn in school and the real world.
JA It's My Business
JA It's My Business! Blended Model provides middle school students an opportunity to learn how to turn an idea into a business. The program introduces students to the process of design thinking as a problem-solving process and provides an authentic entrepreneurial experience for students with each session building toward a product-pitch competition.
JA Finance Park
JA Finance Park helps students build a foundation upon which they can make intelligent financial decisions that last a lifetime, including decisions related to income, expenses, savings, and credit.
The JA Finance Park program is composed of 13 required teacher-taught, in-class lessons. It culminates in a hands-on budgeting simulation that is implemented either at a JA Finance Park facility, mobile unit, or virtual site. Additional extension activities are available for each lesson topic. Lessons are offered in a traditional classroom presentation format designed for middle-grade students, and in a Project-Based Learning (PBL) format created for high school students. Both provide educators a method of delivery that will best meet the needs of their students. (Grades 7-12)
JA Career Success
JA Career Success equips students with the tools and skills required to earn and keep a job in high-growth career industries.
This new program covers key topics, such as:
- 4Cs: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity
- Strong soft skills
- Work priorities
- STEM and other high-growth industries
- Personal-brand and job-hunting tools—resumes, cover letters, interviews, and digital profiles
JA Career Success is composed of seven 45-minute sessions recommended for high school students. Materials are packaged in a self-contained kit that includes detailed plans for the volunteer and materials for 32 students.
JA Job Shadow
JA Job Shadow offers students a unique opportunity: a visit to a professional work environment and insights into how to find and keep a fulfilling career.
Students participating in the program will acquire and apply the skills needed in demanding and ever-changing workplaces. Students will be able to recognize career clusters and potential job positions; understand the importance of researching the requirements needed to earn a position; and develop job-hunting tools, such as networking, resumes, and interviewing skills.
JA You're Hired
JA You’re Hired is an innovative program for high school students that equips them with essential skills to successfully enter the workforce.
The only program of its kind in Arizona, JA You’re Hired is designed to offer high school students real world application. Since its inception nine years ago, nearly 10,000 students have received these critical career-readiness lessons.
JA Personal Finance
Through JA Personal Finance Blended Model, students experience the interrelationship between today's financial decisions and future financial freedom. To achieve financial health and wellness, they learn about money-management strategies, including earning, employment and income, budgeting, savings, credit and debt, consumer protection, smart shopping, risk management, and investing. At the conclusion of this program, students will be able to identify how their personal finances affect their quality of life. They will understand how their financial choices will be the basis of how they get what they want and need.
The JA Student Stock Market Challenge is a live stock market simulation, featuring teams of 400 high school students who compete to see who can accumulate the highest possible net worth in their investment portfolio. The exciting, fast-paced event offers a taste of what it’s like to build a portfolio, manage risk, and experience its performance in a compressed period of time.
