Students at Compass Academy develop city plan

A group of high school students at Compass Academy are coming up with a city plan for Idaho Falls, and they’re trying to get the public involved.

This is actually part of an economics class that fills a graduation requirement for the the seniors.

Seniors at Compass Academy are participating in a hands on project to learn about economics and business.

“Creating a strategic plan for the city it’s really cool to see the two elements come together it’s going to be super rewarding,” said student Mark Lee.

To come up with a plan, the students decided the first step was get input from the public.

“We created a survey that we are distributing, I think we need a thousand to do the survey it’s basically what they want to see in the next five years or so,” Lee said.

“And now we’re going to take the survey results and make our own city plan,” said Austin Nichols.

The purpose of a strategic plan is to make a city more functional.

“Like managing money that comes in, and how we get that money coming in,
and how to grow it in a healthy way, how to grow the city healthily,” Lee said.

Students and faculty said the class has been great.

“It’s given me a pretty good insight into a world that I didn’t really know about before,” said Lee.

“If we were just learning about other ones, it would be like ‘Well how does this apply? How do cities actually use this?’ But by actually making one, I feel like we’re learning more about it,” Nichols said.

“It’s fun to see these guys step up and take on the responsibility and be able to do somethings that are really going to change the world. Even as seniors in high school,” said their teacher Tammi Perez.

The students said Idaho Falls hires people to come in and create a plan for the city, so the project is applicable to real-life situations.