Newport News Excellent Educator allows students to create a business plan
In Newport News, Tanesha Koonce works to prepare her middle schoolers for life long after grade school.
'Ms. Koonce knew at a young age that she wanted to be a teacher. She takes an active role in cultivating student leadership. During her career, she has worked tirelessly to connect students with entrepreneurship opportunities,' according to school leaders.
Mrs. Koonce is the family and consumer sciences teacher at Booker T. Washington Middle School.
'We're preparing them for careers and preparing them to be good contributors to society,' said Koonce.
For the past 22 years, Mrs. Koonce has made learning fun by creating classes to review nutrition while cooking, or methods to pay off student loan debt.
'It gives them life skills, and they see the bigger picture. We get them the bigger picture thinking, critical skills and things that are essential for them in their life, along with their education,' said Koonce.
The eighth-grade class created business plans.
'They got to choose what type of food truck they wanted to open. We had Caribbean, dessert and Mexican food. They pretty much demo the recipes, like the Food Truck challenge. I just wanted to give them another perspective on if you didn't go to college, you could be an entrepreneur or in entrepreneurship, and how much money you could make,' said Koonce. 'For the project, they had to turn in a business plan. They had to create a menu, price their menu out and create a budget for opening the business. They had to research other businesses. It's a complete business plan. If they wanted to, they could take it to the SBA and get a loan!'
It's life lessons like this that earned Koonce the 2024-2025 Newport News Middle School Teacher title.
'It's nice to see students take advantage of the opportunities I offer them,' said Koonce. 'You don't have to learn what's in the curriculum, but if you learn something, I feel like I've done my job perfectly!'
Koonce is also the Athletic Director at the middle school. She works to prepare students to make strategic decisions ahead of high school.
'I talk to them about academic scholarships and keeping up with their grades. I also talk to them about other scholarships, opportunities that are available, not just sports scholarships. I do encourage them to participate in extracurricular activities to be well-rounded students, so if they choose college, if they choose other career fields,' said Koonce.
Many of her students are taking what they learn in the classroom into their future.
'It's awesome to see them excel every day. A few of them have become entrepreneurs. I have had students start businesses, and they say it's a result of my class, so it's nice to see a lot of them say they went to college because of some of the things I expose them to in my class,' said Koonce.
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