Stepinac High School Establishes New Business Department
Stepinac High School has announced the creation of a new Business Academic Department to administer the operations of the school’s increasingly popular innovative business curriculum offerings. It started two years ago when Stepinac launched the innovative The Joyce and Frank Colangelo Entrepreneurship Program, a three-year business-focused minor concentration.
Shortly after the program’s introduction, numerous students chose to pursue the elective, “confirming there was keen demand by students to develop career-ready skills to help them be more competitive in their post-secondary pursuits,” said Frank Portanova (Class of ’93), Vice Principal of Academics and Curriculum.
The program’s appeal is the wide range of real-world learning experiences offered over the course of three years. Students are required to satisfy the requirements of three major components. The first consists of four specialized courses (business leadership course, taken sophomore year); entrepreneurship course, junior year); marketing and business law courses, senior year).
The second component is the Alumni Mentorship Program. It matches Stepinac’s accomplished alumni mentors who are successful business owners and professionals with the students’ career interests. The alumni mentors provide students with guidance and personal insight in the preparation of a business plan including setting business goals, developing an executive summary, creating pricing and marketing strategies and 10-year growth plans.
And now Stepinac is preparing to introduce the third component in the spring, the the Senior Internship Program when student interns will complete a final project as well as 60 hours of internship. The internship opportunities will be overseen by supervisors from local businesses, some owned by alumni.
As has been the case with alumni mentorship, the matching of interns with supervisors will require ongoing administration, an activity that is expected to increase each new academic year as new students enroll.
Another reason why the Business Academic Department was created is the continued expansion of new business curriculum offerings that currently include marketing, business law, finance, sports management, accounting, statistics and instruction on the Bloomberg Terminals in the new Finance Center, leading to Bloomberg certification.
In the new academic year, business management and blockchain technology courses will be added to the curriculum. “We are gearing up with a talented faculty to help assure these new initiatives will empower our students with the skills they will need to succeed in the business world.”
The faculty of the new department includes Chairperson Rackeal Bellamy and instructors Angela Donahoe and Joseph McDermott.
As the current co-chair of the Finance Honors Academy, Bellamy spearheaded several initiatives to strengthen the academic effectiveness of the academy including incorporating the tools of the Bloomberg Terminals into the teaching of the finance and accounting courses. Bellamy is also an entrepreneur as owner of two enterprises: RH Proven Accounting Solutions, a practice she’s grown to over 300 clients nationally since 2012, and AcceptBeautyForAshes on Etsy, an e-commerce business.
Bellamy, who earned a Master’s of Science from Lehman College, is the founder of a startup non-profit, Proving P.R.O.O.F, which provides free economic literacy courses in communities where budget constraints prevent the support for financial literacy programs.
Donahoe brings to the Stepinac faculty extensive experience in teaching college-level classes including International Baccalaureate programs in business and management, marketing, entrepreneurship, and accounting. She earned her Master’s of Science in Education degree from Pace University and is a member of the Business Teachers Association of New York State.
McDermott joined the Stepinac faculty a year ago and has taught business leadership, entrepreneurship and AP statistics. He attended Durham University in England where he earned a Master’s in Business Management. Previously, he worked as a trading operations analyst.
This is a press release provided by the organization. It has been lightly edited and is being published by Examiner Media as a public service.
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