Catasauqua Area School District has been recognized as a FUTURE Gold Standard School for Financial Literacy Education by Next Gen Personal Finance for requiring all students to take at least one semester of personal finance before graduating.

CASD is one of 1,247 NGPF Gold or FUTURE Gold Standard Schools. NGPF is a leading nonprofit provider of financial education curriculum and teacher professional development, based out of Palo Alto, Calif.

A news release from the company noted fewer than one in five students nationwide receive this level of access to a comprehensive financial education in high school. This is approximately 18.3 percent of students.

Only five states - Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia - currently require high school students to take a personal finance class for at least one semester. Outside of those states, the responsibility falls to the individual schools and districts to ensure students receive this training.

Outside of the five mandate states, less than one in 10 students are required to take at least one semester of personal finance to graduate. This is 9.3 percent.

“This makes Catasauqua Area School District’s FUTURE Gold Standard achievement all the more impressive,” the news release states.

NGPF is a go-to financial education resource used by more than 40,000 educators who serve more than 2 million middle and high school students throughout the United States. Through its curriculum, interactive teacher professional development and nationwide advocacy initiatives, NGPF is working toward Mission: 2030, when all students will take at least one semester of personal finance before graduating from high school by the year 2030.

NGPF’s endowment allows anyone to access its curricular resources, teacher professional development and advocacy support at no cost.