St. John Bosco High School Partners with The Wharton School of Business to Launch Entrepreneurship Pathway

St. John Bosco High School acknowledges the importance of business and finance education for college bound students and has partnered with the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania to offer a finance and entrepreneurship curricular pathway. Wharton has selected St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower to develop and implement a four year Entrepreneurship pathway for high school students focused on teaching finance, investing, leadership development, entrepreneurship, negotiations, decision making and strategy. In the fall, St. John Bosco High School will be the first high school on the West Coast to have an Entrepreneurship pathway taught by Wharton trained educators.

Wharton professor and founder of the Building Bridges to Wealth program Keith Weigelt, with partners Jill Bazelon and Christine Galib from the Penn Graduate School of Education, collaborated with St. John Bosco leadership to create the innovative pathway. Weigelt, Bazelon and Galib also developed and led an intensive two-week training workshop with St. John Bosco High School instructor,
Bryce Weiglin, a Cal State University, Long Beach graduate with a law degree from Indiana University. Weiglin will lead the Wharton School of Business Entrepreneurship pathway in the fall.

The St. John Bosco High School class of 2019 will be the first group to have access to the
Ivy League caliber Entrepreneurship pathway. The project-based pathway prepares students for a business major in college, ultimately to become entrepreneurs who use economic and technological innovation to achieve social goals such as a more just and humane society.

Incoming freshman students will have the opportunity to enroll in St. John Bosco’s Entrepreneurship pathway that will offer four years of advanced business focused educational curriculum. Students will be introduced to entrepreneurship through case studies, key readings and primary information resources. Students will become familiar with organizations and entrepreneurs through service-learning projects, and will begin to develop skills demonstrated by successful entrepreneurs, including team building and leadership, negotiation, and working in complex social and cultural environments. In the third year of the program, students will hone their entrepreneurial skill set and mindset by starting, growing and experiencing the adversities of running a business. Students also will form teams and utilize what they have learned in the classroom and through their experiences as CEOs to create and submit a business plan to national and international business competitions.

“I am delighted that St. John Bosco High School and Wharton are joining forces to improve business education for high school students,” noted Casey Yeazel, principal, St. John Bosco High School.
“By adding a trained business educational resource to our school, we aim to develop a solid foundation upon which students can make sound financial decisions in the future and have a
clear path to career success.”

“St. John Bosco High School is leading the way in innovative education by giving students from
a diverse ethnic and socio-economic background exposure to business teachings at the high school level – bridging the gap between traditional education and real-world business success,” said Bryce Weiglin, entrepreneurship pathway instructor, St. John Bosco High School.

On Sunday, July 12 an informational event about the Wharton School of Business Entrepreneurship pathway at St. John Bosco was hosted by Vincent and Cynthia Pellerito and Wells Fargo Private Bank. More than 80 Los Angeles business leaders gathered together to learn about the Entrepreneurship pathway at St. John Bosco High School. The event was catered by Homegirl Catering, a division of Homeboy Industries.