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When the Flowers
& Things board of directors met for itsweekly meeting, tempers were
flaring. An appointed director tries to maintain order, but the powers
behind the small company that sold flowers in Woodruff Park on Fridays
last spring had a lot of urgent questions: Who will run the central
office while others make sales calls by approaching passersby? Should
we stay in groups of two or three? Who decided to spend all that money
on Cokes? Why waste money on a flower cart when we can just carry
the merchandise ourselves? And why does it have to be so hot? The
young entrepreneurs rolled playfully in their luxurious chairs around
a big, round table. Originally constructed for the television pilot
of "The Client," their businesslike conference room is partially
glass-enclosed and still bears the fictional name of Reggie Love on
the door. Though the board members were all under 12 years old and
took pleasure just being in the "grown-up" room, it did
not take them long to get down to the major item of business - the
bottom line.
It turns out the Entrepreneurial Club of the Atlanta New Century School
in the Healey Building never did realize enough profits from its lunchtime
sales to take the trip to Disney World as originally planned, but
it did have enough to host a successful pizza party for the school.
Richard Fendler, an assistant professor of finance at Georgia State,
met weekly with the students to walk them through a profit-loss statement
and strategically plan their next move. "The idea was to give
them some exposure to keeping track of money," he says. "It
really was a blast because they were amazed that things cost money
- that things like advertising was an expense." So was "renting"
a cart from the school and stocking more desirable flowers and wrappings.
Without knowing the terminology, the children were grasping concepts
of supply and demand, how to calculate net cash flow and the challenges
of running a business. Fendler, who plans to help out again when the
club is revived and expanded next spring, also learned a few things
himself.
Children do not take to overheads as well as college students, and
they have very short attention spans, he says. But that won't stop
him from lending his expertise to the school, especially considering
his office in the College of Business Administration Building is basically
across the street and his son is a New Century kindergarten pupil.
That's exactly why Cole Walker carefully chose the Healey Building
in downtown's historic Fairlie-Poplar district as the school's home.
Enthusiastically supported by Georgia State University President Carl
Patton and Central Atlanta Progress and recognized by educators nationwide,
the school en-courages parents to take an active role in their children's
education. An entrepreneur himself, Walker, who is a graduate student
in instructional technology at Georgia State, opened the kindergarten
through eighth-grade school in August of 1995. Blending a combination
of innovative technology, customized curriculum and convenient hours
of operation for parents, the private school uses the city as an extended
classroom. Visits to Atlanta's museums, libraries, science centers
and parks are not special field trips; they are part of the everyday
schedule. Downtowners have grown accustomed to seeing the children
in their identifiable red caps playing in the parks and absorbing
culture and knowledge at special events.
Georgia State has lent its own resources to
New Century. The students take physical education classes in Georgia
State's Kinesiology lab and learn music in the Rialto Center for the
Performing Arts. These lessons enable children to see their education
functioning in a different context than the classroom, Walker says.
And, most conveniently for downtown business people, the school operates
around the workday, allowing for parental visits at lunchtime and
more scheduling flexibility than traditional schools.
This fall, the school's enrollment jumped from 24 students last year
to 72, many of whom are children of Georgia State faculty and staff.
Brian Mason's daughter is a fifth-grader at New Century. A post-doctoral
associate of Georgia State's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy,
Mason has hosted New Century students in the CHARA lab and taught
the children about telescopes firsthand. His involvement allows them
to interact with a "real, live astronomer" and gives him
the chance to spend more time with his daughter. "New Century
seems to have a real innovative approach to teaching with a lot of
hands-on and individualized instruction. They do a lot of work with
technology that makes it very exciting for Ashley and for me, as well,"
Mason says. "And, best of all, you can't beat the convenience
of the school." -Andrea Scher
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