I have been running a classroom business in my special education life skills classroom for about two years now. And I’m not looking back. A classroom business has become a great learning experience for my students. And I’m going to share with you some strategies that you can use for all of your classrooms, not just a special education classroom.
I’ve run a nacho cart, a coffee cart, a snack cart and a ton of other jobs like we’ve done a smoothie shop. Furthermore, you also could give back into the community. I’ve made cards for military members. I’ve also made tie blankets for local senior centers, and we’ve also done donations for animal hospitals. Bringing in that classroom community and school community really drives home the importance of the classroom business.
Are you so overwhelmed with even the thought of a classroom business that you’ve just avoided it the whole time in your teaching career? Don’t worry. That was me.
I know teachers really struggle with the amount of time and effort it takes to set up. Teachers also struggle with the amount of money it would take to get it up and running or to even start it and fund it and work with your administrator. And finally, teachers just didn’t even know where to start.
Here are a couple other ideas for a classroom business:
An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages a business. Now I know some of you are thinking, my students can’t be entrepreneurs. They’re not building it from the ground up, but they truly can make decisions that will impact the business.
They can determine how much to sell the items for, how many hours you’re going to put into creating it, how many hours you’re going to put in to sell it. There’s so many things that you want to continue to add your students into so that they can build those entrepreneur skills. They can make decisions on seasonal items that you might sell. So if you decide to do a coffee cart, you may say during fall, you want pumpkin flavored coffee, but then during the winter, we might not have that.
Let your students be a part of that process so that they can build those skills to be an entrepreneur. Once they’ve learned those entrepreneurs skills, let your students take risks, let your students take ownership in this business. I know you’ll be starting it and getting the ideas out there and doing a lot of the inside work, but let your students take that responsibility and make actions in their business.
Here’s the most important questions you want to ask prior to setting up your classroom business. First of all, what business do you and your students want to start? That is a two part question. What business do you feel confidently enough that you can support? If you want to make friendship bracelets and sell those, but you have no idea how to sell friendship bracelets, or make them, you might not want to do that. But if you feel like you are an art teacher and you want to make handmade cards and sell those, that makes sense, right?
Next, what business matches your students’ strengths or interests? If your students are not interested in making a coffee cart or a snack cart, then you might not want to do that. Listen to their ideas and involve them in the process of deciding what type of business that you want. This would be a great opportunity to discuss as a class if your school has a need for something.
If your students and their peers are constantly coming to class without pencils or paper or any of their materials for class, maybe a school store might be something that you consider for your school. The classroom business helps serve a need and students can benefit from having that. Your students would be the one supporting that. And then they can see directly impacted in that school.
Once you’ve decided your potential business idea between what you are confident you can support and what your students’ interests might be. That gets the ball rolling, and you can get started somewhere. You want to then look into what materials or supplies you need for that business.
You want to write down every single thing and make a comprehensive list to determine what you need.
Do you need an area to set up, do you need tables and chairs?
Will you need a box for money?
You need to write all of that down to figure out how much potentially this might cost. Once you have that comprehensive list written out, you’re going to want to check on pricing for all of those materials.
I’m going to name a popular reasoning for why you should start a classroom business:
Teachers can learn from this experience as well. You would be able to gain financial freedom. Teachers would have the opportunity to use their classroom business profit to plan your own field trips. You could have celebrations without paying out of your pocket. Teachers could do a cooking lesson without spending their own money. The list goes on.
That financial freedom from your classroom business will truly benefit you in the long run as a teacher. We all know we spend our own money to support our classroom. I love that I don’t have to worry about budget as much because I have that little extra spending cash from your classroom business that I can directly put right back into my classroom.
This is where I see teachers struggle the most. When you have that comprehensive list of materials, you will be able to make an itemized list with pricing on it, to then give back to your administrators. Administrators are going to be your friends. I have found that when working with administrators, it is important to ask these three questions and make sure those are getting answered so that your administrators have a clear idea of their expectations for the business and your outcomes for the business.
If you truly want your classroom business to get up and running, you need administration approval. If your administrators flat out say no, but you really need to dig deep into figuring out why they are saying no.
I challenge you to go back to your classroom, bring those concerns that your administration has given you and try to collaborate with your classroom to figure out how we can fix those concerns and get your business approved.
If there is a business financial reasoning as to why they can not fund you, I have some tips and tricks.
You can:
Check with:
If none of that works and you’ve gone through the whole list, you can fund the basics yourself and reimburse yourself.
When you finally get the approval to start running your business, here are a couple of things that you really need to consider:
What days and how many hours will you want to put into the business?
Involve your students by making flyers or just advertising in an email to teachers, depending on who your target audience is. You may send an all staff email to let them know that you’re starting this new business and you need some help and support. Interest inventories go a long way when you’re selling to staff!
You need to figure out what your school’s procedures are in regards to collecting money for your business. Talk with your administrators to determine how this should be handled.
Use other teachers to take a primary role in the development of your classroom business, if they are included.
Make sure that your students have a role that they are interested in. If you have a student who’s really talkative and likes to talk to people, you may want to put them on the front lines to make sure that they are being social and enjoying their job. If you have students that might be more creative and like making things, maybe they’re going to be in charge of making flyers and advertising for the business.
If something isn’t working, do not be afraid to make adjustments, have an open conversation with your class and determine what went wrong and how can you change it?
I know running a classroom business is intimidating, but make sure that you include your school administrators cause they can be your best friends in this process and they can be your biggest cheerleaders along the way. I know I’ve seen some administrators go out of their way to make sure that they stop by our classroom business on a weekly basis to say hi to the kids and get involved. So give your administrators that opportunity and try to work as closely as you can with them. Cause they will truly support you along the way.
In summary, take your classroom business, one step at a time. Work through this process slowly, there are so many steps that you need to grow this business in your classroom. I hope you can make this business successful in your school!
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