Catholic School Students Tackle Real-World Finance at JA Finance Park

by Diocese of Des Moines Catholic Schools | April 23, 2026

The assignment was deceptively simple: you're an adult now. Here's your job, your income, your credit score, maybe a family. Now go figure out the rest of your life.

On six dates throughout the 2025-2026 school year, eighth graders from Diocese of Des Moines Catholic Schools filed into Junior Achievement's Finance Park facility and were handed exactly that challenge. No safety net. No mom and dad picking up the tab. Just a randomly assigned life scenario and a budget to balance — rent, groceries, transportation, healthcare, and everything else that comes with growing up.

For many of them, it was the first time the future felt real.

More Than a Field Trip

JA Finance Park, run by Junior Achievement of Central Iowa (JA), is billed as a capstone program in personal financial literacy and career exploration. But to hear the students and teachers describe it, it's something harder to quantify: a moment when the abstract becomes concrete, and the lessons of the classroom collide with the weight of actual life.

The program works in two phases. First, teachers spend weeks guiding students through curriculum workbooks covering budgeting, the difference between debit and credit, buying versus leasing, career options, and the mechanics of personal finance. Then comes simulation day, a 3-to-4-hour immersive experience at JA's facility in Des Moines, where students work through budgetary decisions with the help of community volunteers who serve as guides and mentors.

"It's stuff that they are interested in," said Chelsea Krastel, an eighth-grade homeroom and math teacher at St. Joseph who has now brought students to Finance Park twice. "And they know that, eventually, it's something that they're all gonna have to deal with."

Krastel noted that the financial calculations woven through the simulation tie naturally into the math curriculum she already teaches, making Finance Park less of a detour from academics and more of a destination for them.

A Character, a Life, a Budget

Walk into the Finance Park facility and you don't just observe financial concepts. You inhabit them. Each student is randomly assigned a character: a specific job, an income level, a credit score, and a family situation (or lack of one). From there, they must navigate real decisions, including housing, furniture, groceries, transportation, activities, vacations, and more, and work through the same trade-offs any adult faces every month.

Darren Hemann, an eighth-grade math teacher at St. Anthony who has been with the school for 14 years, helped introduce the Finance Park program to his students last year and brought a new class through this February. He sees the simulation as a meaningful extension of what students are beginning to understand about the world.

"It gives them a good simulation," Hemann said. "It kind of reproduces a year. They're given a character with a job, an income, a credit score, a family or no family, and then they've got to go through the simulation and start budgeting for different things they would have to experience in life."

The preparation for that day starts well before it. Hemann spent four weeks walking students through the material so when they walked into the facility, they weren't starting from zero.

"My Perspective Has Changed Drastically"

For Aziel Saldana, an eighth grader at St. Anthony, the day left a mark.

"Finance Park was a very cool and exciting way to learn about future expenses," Saldana said. "It was a positive experience for me to learn how to prepare financially for my future." 

But beyond the enthusiasm, something shifted in how he sees the world. 

"I think after coming here, my perspective on payments and taxes has changed drastically,” Saldana said.

That kind of perspective shift is exactly what the program is designed to produce. Junior Achievement's Finance Park has been recognized for its innovative approach to financial literacy education, and the Central Iowa chapter, with its facility in Des Moines, brings that experience to students across the region.

For Olivia Messerschmidt, also an eighth grader at St. Anthony, the simulation illuminated connections she hadn't made before. 

"What I learned at Finance Park was budgeting, understanding how income, budgets, and life mix," she said. "I learned what collateral means and also took a quiz to figure out my likely future job. I think that it will really help how I make decisions financially in the future.”

Rooted in Mission

The Diocese of Des Moines Catholic Schools' participation in JA Finance Park isn't a coincidence of scheduling. It's a reflection of values. St. Anthony and St. Joseph are two of 12 Diocese of Des Moines Catholic Schools taking part in the program across the 2025–2026 school year. Others include Sacred Heart, Christ the King, Holy Trinity, St. Augustin, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Luke the Evangelist, St. Malachy, St. Patrick, St. Pius X, and St. Theresa, all sending students to the JA facility on staggered simulation dates.

For Krastel, the alignment between the program and the schools' Catholic identity is clear. 

"Our mission is to prepare them for the world, to be Christ’s leaders in the world," Krastel said. "And a big part of that is going to be having a career and raising a family and being able to fund that family."

The schools have also built a progression into their financial literacy efforts. Elementary students participate in JA BizTown, another Junior Achievement program that introduces younger students to the concepts of jobs and community economics. By the time those same students reach eighth grade and walk into Finance Park, the seeds have already been planted.

"It's never too early to start talking about financial literacy with students," Hemann said.

What Adulthood Costs

There's a moment in the Finance Park simulation when students realize what a salary actually means in practice.

"They can kind of get a better idea of what $30,000 a year is going to get you," Krastel said.

That moment of reckoning, when an income that sounds grown-up suddenly reveals its limits against the cost of rent and groceries and a car payment and health insurance, that's the point. And the students are ready for it.

"It just puts some things into perspective for them," Krastel said. "Right now, they don't think about it so much because their parents are funding them. But they're going to be having to get ready for college, and a lot of them will start working over the summer before they go to high school next year, so it gives them a good glimpse into that future."

For one day these eighth graders get that glimpse — and if their teachers and classmates are any indication, they'll be better for it long after graduation day.