COLCHESTER — The West Prairie Board of Education voted to accept the curriculum provided by the Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO) program, an initiative aimed at training high school students to become entrepreneurs. 

District Superintendent Dr. Carol Kilver said the school board, in its action to accept the curriculum, agreed to “the learning out comes provided by the CEO program, and those learning out comes look at the student creating and presenting effective business plan, that they demonstrate an effective communication and collaboration skills, that they understand appropriate professional attire, that they compare and contrast a wide variety of businesses, that they can interact with business owners and guests to the classroom and that they can execute (the) creation of their own small business.“

As previously reported, the CEO Program is a year-long high school business elective course with the purpose of imparting business and management expertise to high school juniors and seniors who attend a 90-minute course five days a week to learn business and management skills through the hands-on experience of running their own business and retaining profits earned from the goods and services sold to customers.
Enrollment begins November 22 through December 15, 2018.

The CEO program originated in 2008 with the Midland Institute for Entrepreneurship, an Effingham-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Since then the program has grown to 40 classes spanning several Midwestern states including Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and others. The idea for the CEO program was first introduced to the McDonough County community in fall of 2016.