Eagle Einsteins Sweep 2007 “March Smartness”

Barrington High School Seniors Claim Ocean State LifeSmarts Title in Third Year Effort

March 2nd, 2007 – The “Eagle Einsteins” of Barrington High School have claimed the 2007 Rhode Island LifeSmarts Championship after placing third in 2005, and second in 2006. The team of seniors from Barrington High School is now preparing to represent Rhode Island at the national LifeSmarts competition to take place in Orlando, Florida on April 21-24, 2007.

Rhode Island fans can follow our 2007 champion team’s progress at the nationals by clicking here.

The 2007 RI State LifeSmarts competition a.k.a “March Smartness” saw intense competition down to the last question with the “Junior Cougars” of North Providence claiming 1st Runner up and the “Jia Rules” team of Barrington H.S. taking the 2nd Runner Up position.

Along with the top three teams, eight other teams competed representing Burrillville, Coventry, East Greenwich, Lincoln, The Lincoln School, Providence Academy of International Studies, and Warwick Veteran’s Memorial High Schools. A full listing of the teams members and coaches can be found by clicking here.

Over a dozen academic, business, government and civic leaders, including Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio, volunteered as Officials at the March Smartness competition at Rhode Island College.

Sovereign Bank and Barrington Public Schools combined efforts to fund the state champion team’s trip to the national competition.Sponsors funding the state portion of the competition included; Sovereign Bank, National Grid; Verizon, AstraZeneca, Herff-Jones, and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers & Health Professionals.

LifeSmarts: the ultimate consumer challenge, is a fast-paced quiz show competition for teams of 4 to 5 high school students who demonstrate consumer knowledge in the areas of: personal finance, technology, health & safety, environment, and consumer rights & responsibilities. The teams first compete online and top-scoring teams are invited to the state competition.

The national program is offered by the National Consumers League (NCL) and is coordinated in Rhode Island by the RI Jump$tart Coalition.

The Rhode Island Jump$tart Coalition (founded in 2004) is an coalition of dozens of Ocean State and New England region businesses, community organizations, educational institutions, government agencies and officers. The coalition¹s mission is “to increase the financial literacy of individuals in Rhode Island.” The coalition¹s website is www.rijumpstart.org

In 2006, for the first time, Rhode Island high school seniors participated in the national Jump$tart Coalition personal financial literacy survey that measures teenagers¹ knowledge of personal financial literacy topics. Rhode Island high school seniors answered 48.8% of the questions correctly. The national average was 52.4%. For more details on the national survey, please click here.

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