Management, Entrepreneurship Courses Offer Rockwood Students Experience in Careers in Business

February is National Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month, a time to raise awareness of the role career and technical education has in readying learners for college and career success. The Rockwood School District offers a variety of CTE learning opportunities in three main areas: industrial technology; family and consumer science; and business and marketing.

Today, we take a closer look at business, marketing and entrepreneurship courses at Lafayette High.

Katie Piercy had never taken a business course heading into her time at Lafayette High.

One thing because apparent, though, shortly into her first semester in Scott Beaver’s Business Management Processes class.

“I found I was actually really good at this and it really interests me as a life path,” Piercy said.

Now a senior, Piercy has taken business courses all four years at Lafayette. This semester, she is cadet teaching Beaver’s Business Management and Entrepreneurship course, which she also took last spring.

She is settling in on a postgraduate plan, and business is a big part of it.

“I know I want to major in business, but I don’t know what side,” Piercy said. “I just want to get my hands in the business world, so I like helping out in class, too, to broaden my horizons.”

As part of the Rockwood School District’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) curriculum, business and marketing classes prioritize dynamic, experiential learning that grants students ownership of their educational journey, with the goal of helping students see a direct line from their coursework to future careers.

At Lafayette, students in Business Management and Entrepreneurship collaborate on starting a business through the Junior Achievement Company Program, which tasks students with filling a need or solving a problem in their community and teaches them practical skills required to conceptualize, capitalize and manage their own business venture.

In 2024, a team from Lafayette was one of 15 finalists from around the country to advance to the National Company of the Year competition. This year’s students are in the early stages of pitching business ideas to each other, which will be refined into the class project for the semester.

“I’m hoping these experiences help me by meeting new people, getting new ideas and figuring out different ways to think,” said Timothy Zheng, a junior in the class. “Being in these classes helps you get a new perspective on the different ways people think. That’s the most valuable lesson you can learn: not being fixed on one way of learning but finding the most efficient way and that helps you grow.”

Zheng and Piercy both also took Beaver’s Entrepreneur Accelerator course this past fall, with a capstone project of conceiving a business idea and developing a pitch for the annual Battle of the Saints Teen Pitch Competition.

The students identified needs, conducted market research and developed a prototype and business plan to present to professional judges at the competition.

“I had to go through different iterations, and Mr. Beaver’s class helped a lot,” Zheng said. “I was able to be around people who had the same interests as far as starting a business and developing a product. It helped me stay motivated and focused on what I wanted to do. I got different opinions right away about what I could try or improve.”

Zheng developed a construction management software called Stratus CM, and Piercy made a custom bedsheet called Zip Nest.

Piercy’s idea sprang from her love of sewing as well as a practical problem: people who have difficulty sleeping in the same bed as another person. The Zip Nest is a bedsheet that’s divided in the middle, so it gives people their own separate section of the bedsheet while still allowing them to feel connected.

Piercy earned second place and a $200 prize at Battle of the Saints.

“In taking these courses, I realized many strengths and weaknesses that I have that I didn’t know about before, such as public speaking, communication, the business side of that,” Piercy said. “It’s really fascinating. I’ve learned so much.”