(Butler, PA) Hearing that his students were discussing hypothetical investments in another teacher’s class affirmed Rob Esposto’s impressions as an adviser in Butler County Community College’s Stock Market Game.

“They were talking about the stocks that they would be trading that day,” said Esposto, a 12th-grade economics teacher at Butler Senior High School. “That is really cool. Makes you feel good.”

Fourth-graders through high school seniors competing in the Stock Market Game receive a hypothetical $100,000, make buy-and-trade decisions and track how those decisions would have played out in the market had they been real.

 

“The kids learn without even knowing it.”

-- Jeremy Kropf, Foundation for Free Enterprise Education, Erie, about BC3’s Stock Market Game

 

Esposto and Butler Intermediate teacher Jamie Veltri advised squads whose final equities were among the best in western Pennsylvania in a game that doubles as an introduction to financial literacy.

“It’s both,” Jeremy Kropf said. “But that’s the point. The kids learn without even knowing it.”

Kropf is technology and project director for the Foundation for Free Enterprise Education, Erie, which describes the game as an online simulation of global capital markets and teaches children about economics, investing and personal finance.

The foundation offers the Stock Market Game in partnership with BC3’s Professor David C. Huseman Center for Economic Education. Financial gifts to the BC3 Education Foundation through the Pennsylvania Educational Improvement Tax Credit program defray the cost for children to compete.

The opportunity for students as young as fourth-graders to learn about financial literacy is important, Huseman said, “because they are going to be dealing with money all of their lives. So the earlier they can learn about it, the better off they will be.”

 

“I thought it would be a very good learning experience … I was trying to figure out exactly how the stock market works.”

-- Micah Fisher, Butler High senior, Stock Market Game player

 

More than 4,400 students attending 81 schools in 20 Pennsylvania counties comprised the foundation’s Western Region in 2025-2026. The game’s divisions are elementary, middle and high school; its yearlong session lasts 30 weeks and its fall and spring competitions, 10 weeks.

Micah Fisher, a Butler High senior, played for the first time in 2025-2026.

“I thought it would be a very good learning experience,” Fisher said. “It was something that I never learned about. I was trying to figure out exactly how the stock market works.”

Fisher, Shawn Donaldson and Armoni Hutchinson – a Butler High team advised by Esposto – placed third in the Western Region in the spring competition with an equity of $120,463.97.

 

“It’s pretty fun, but then pretty stressful at the same time.”

-- Lillian Ruxton, Butler Intermediate sixth-grader, Stock Market Game player

 

Like Fisher, Lillian Ruxton and Laila Silvis competed for the first time.

“It’s pretty fun, but then pretty stressful at the same time,” Ruxton said. “It was fun because we got to pick companies in the markets, but it was stressful because we didn’t know how much total money they were making.”

Ruxton, Silvis, Collin Kiddle, Nyla Sanders and Otto Stevenson were members of a Butler Intermediate sixth-grade team advised by Veltri that finished first in the Western Region and first in Pennsylvania in the fall session with an equity of $117,772.43.

“Some of them have never heard about the stock market before, so this is their first experience with it,” Veltri said. “I’ve actually had other sixth-grade teachers tell me they hear students talking about how their stocks are doing, and they are trying to figure out why a sixth-grader is talking about that.”

 

 

“We checked our stocks every day before class.”

-- Jackson Dupe, Butler Intermediate sixth-grader, Stock Market Game player

 

Bailey Callender, Jackson Dupe, Gavin Feidt, Kezia Grosse and Mackenzie Raab, another Butler Intermediate team advised by Veltri, placed second in the region and in the state with an equity of $109,990.96.

“We checked our stocks every day before class,” Dupe said.

“We would come into class and they would be up on the screen so we could see how they were doing,” Feidt said.

More than 10,000 students statewide have competed in the Stock Market Game in each of the past three years.

Richard Goldinger, Butler County district attorney, was the featured speaker at a Western Region awards ceremony May 5 that drew approximately 200 students and advisers to Founders Hall on BC3’s main campus in Butler Township.

Among other teams whose final equities were among the best in western Pennsylvania were those from Brookville Junior-Senior High in Jefferson County and Riverside Elementary in Beaver County.

Brookville’s Rees Taylor and Aaron Turner, advised by Nancee Miles, placed first in the Western Region and in the state in the spring session with $147,333.98.

In the yearlong session, Riverside’s Isaac Guerrini, Damian Marley, Olivia Plum and Jonathan Steinbach finished first in the region and in Pennsylvania with $220,523.91; and Nico Carr, Lillian Dyer, Daniel Madden and Broc States ended third in the Western Region and in the state with $120,063.36.

Each Riverside team was advised by Michael Gibson.