Perry Meridian High School - Passages Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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teacher, originated an idea to incor- porate couponing and reftinding value books into her teaching. In this pro- ject, students learned how to save from five to twenty dollars on their grocery bill and how to send in refund offers to get money on products. It would be good for students who are going to college because they wiU need to learn to save money, said Mrs. Burdine. Future improvements in the business department included purchasing com- puters for the accoimting classes. Mrs. Shambaugh stated, We want computers in order to keep the students up with the business world. Without them, our department won ' t be as modem as some businesses are. She also indicated that the department is hopeful of starting a new class. We want a course ceiUed business communications which would teach the students all kinds of commimications that go on in the business world. Lisa Williams ' 83 was named loc al winner of the Busjness Career Development Program. This program was sponsored by Executive Women International, in cooperation with Lanier Business Products, Inc. It was designed to assist, motivate, and encourage high school students con- sidering a career in business. Lisa received a cash award and a 8250 donation for the school plus a por- table dictation machine for Mr. James Head, principal. Lisa also advanced to the district competition. This year brought new hght to the faces of many business teachers as they saw upturns in the enrollment and in the number of passing students in their courses. Even though the population for the whole school had leveled off, more students reahzed the importance of including business classes in their curriculum. Some popular courses included Typing I-II, which dealt with fim- damental typing skills. General business, the only business course offered to freshmen, helped each stu- dent to imderstand and solve every- day business problems. Accounting classes studied the systematic re- cording of business transactions. Business law dealt with the study of basic commom laws pertaining to business and everday Ufe. The business department is one of the better and larger departments because everyone helps each other out and works their hardest at doing their jobs, said Mrs. Biu-dine. Marketing classes performed a simulated board game from Proctor and Gamble where the class divided up into smaller groups and formed a company. The companies competed in creating a successful product. Another project was the study of the courses. We have also done new advertising where the students would look through magazines and pick out different types of advertising copy. Some ads were emotional and some appealed to the senses. All beginning typing students were able to use elec- tric typewriters instead of the ob- solete manual ones. We saw an im- provement in speed from past years. We were also using practice sets in Ike Wyant ' 84 writes down some notes on a lecture in advanced business. Mrs. Lennyce Powers answers a question about shorthand from one of her students. importance of packaging; they used the Tylenol case as an example. The business department saw new changes and new improvements boimd to create some P M H S students that will be minding their own businesses in the future. Mr. Gary Raker, general business typing teacher, said, We are going to get word-processing equipment which will be used in the secretarial general business. Mrs. Sharon Keith, office procedures, business machines, and typing teacher, remarked, We were getting money from the school board and the state to purchase the word processors. We were positive that we were going to get them, but we didn ' t know when. We wotdd also use them for instruc- tional purposes. •BUSINESS 137 iHIIH

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They Mind Their Own Business The business department at Perry provided many opportunities for students. The department had four major purposes. Its first purpose was to provide students with opportunity to develop skills that enabled him to obtain meaningful employment. Secondly, it provided adequate knowledge of subjects for personal use and further education. It provided an understanding of business prac- tices and economic concepts that were important to him as a citizen and consumer. The business depart- ment ' s last purpose was to provide opportunity to develop sound, social, and economic viewpoints that en- abled him to adjust to the society in which he lived. Over fifty percent of all workers were involved with some type of business-related occupation. This fact proved the need for the business department and the courses offered in its curriculum. The business department went through many changes dvuing the 1983 school year. New equipment had made changes to better the department. The school purchased 27 Smith-Corona electric typewriters with programmed margins and seli- correcting keys which eliminated the need to white out mistakes. Mrs. Mary Shambaugh, business depart- ment chairman, said, These new typewriters are faster and save much time. Also new this year was text- book adoption, which occurs every six years when all new books are pur- chared to keep up with the times. Other improvements which were made this year include taste tests on new products performed by the marketing classes. Mrs. Linda Burdine, typing and marketing 136 BUSINESS

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Central UTine - Getting a Head Start Central Nine vocational technical school for Perry Meridian students and students from nine other schools, gave juniors and seniors a head start in getting furthur educa- tion. Students who chose to enroll in courses offered at Central Nine spent half of the school day at Perry and the other half at the vocational school. Some courses offered lasted only two semesters while others lasted four. Students attending signed up during their sophomore year. Many various courses, from foods to medical occupations, were offered at Central Nine Around 180 students were enrolled, and the enrollment had increased from past years. Three courses related to business were offered,, includ- ing accounting, secretarial clerical workers, and marketing distribution. The accounting and sec- retarial clerical courses taught student about computers and word processing as well as teaching them the basic skills of office workers. Central Nine offered two new courses,. a computer course and a cosmetology course. The new computer course, data processing, had originally been studied with com- puter programming. Mrjay Ceimpbell, the Perry Meridian representative for Central Nine said, Having the new data processing course works out better because it gets more students learning about computers. The cosmotology course was a four 138 CENTRAL NINE