Jennifer MacDuff – Karl G. Maeser Prep Academy

Jennifer is a dedicated educator who is always looking for ways to engage her students in the world of finance and business. Having worked at Goldman Sachs for 18 years, she woke up to find that her passion was in teaching and applied for a teaching position and immediately entered a Masters’ degree program in Education.

Her classroom curriculum is based not only on state standards, but on real life scenarios and experience. She was instrumental in establishing our student store, which the Business and Financial Literacy students run. They had to do the market research to determine which products were popular and cost-effective, because they are on a strict budget. Marketing and pricing was key to the success of the store, so she guided the students in business planning and marketing. Some lessons were learned the hard way, as the students discovered time and dedication are required to run a successful business. Loss of inventory or wasted inventory in perishables led to better decisions for product selection.

Not only does she have a sixth sense in business, but she has a good heart. As the student store became profitable, she taught and guided the students in “paying it forward.” She would bring charitable opportunities to the students of students or organizations who needed funds for pivotal materials or causes. She never committed the student store funds to anything without the support of her classes. They did it as a team. Because she created this community spirit in her class, the students lovingly names the store McMaeser in her honor as well as the schools.

Mrs. MacDuff doesn’t teach at the students, she truly engages them in their own learning. She created a virtual stock market game so the students can understand just what it means to trade on the stockmarket. They earn and lose money according to the stocks they choose.
We highly recommend Mrs. MacDuff as an outstanding educator in Financial Literacy and Business. She arrives early and stays late. She also advises the Student Council and continually feeds the Spirit of Maeser everyday with her energy and work ethic. We LOVE Mrs. MacDuff! You will too!

–Robyn Ellis