CHS offers three different classes that encourage students to follow their interests in business, and teach them life skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. These classes, run by Carol King, are Marketing, Virtual Enterprise, and Advanced Business Management.

The classes must be taken consecutively because each one builds on the class before. Marketing is mostly introductory, involving students creating marketing plans and learning that aspect of business. Virtual Enterprise and Advanced Business Management provide more real-life experience in work environments.

“The more advanced class is the second year of the same class,” King said. “The curriculum is almost the same but after they’ve had a year of experience they are able to be more competitive and understand what’s coming, and take it to that next level.”

The business program teaches students important life skills that they will take with them into college and life beyond that. They learn all angles of business management and leadership.

“What I enjoy most is learning how to lead other students in a work environment and getting all those skills,” CEO Griffin Avilez said. “The class also teaches you a bunch of really valuable aspects of how to run a business and how to take part in other parts of a business like finance and marketing and sales. There’s a lot of really valuable information.”

A key part of running a business is learning to manage finances. The two advanced classes run their own businesses, and a designated financial team manages sales and money for each one.

“I’m part of the financial team so I’m in charge of managing all the numbers and spreadsheets,” Senior Braden Flynn said. “So far in the business, we’ve been managing the sales and money we use for our projects.”

Virtual Enterprise and Advanced Business Management run their own businesses with the goal of successfully marketing their products at trade shows. At trade shows, businesses from schools around the country market their own products.

“It’s just selling and buying from other companies,” Avilez said. “I had to do an elevator pitch which was in front of a panel of judges, and I had to pitch our business to them. Then after that we’re just selling to a bunch of other schools that are there and buying from them. It was a lot of fun.”