Growing up, she never looked at education as the career which would define her adult life. Thirty-plus years after she arrived in New Prague to begin teaching elementary school students, Jodi Prchal has used a strong work ethic and lessons on how to earn a living to provide lifelong lessons for students at Falcon Ridge.
Prchal was recently honored by the Minnesota Council on Economic Education as its Elementary Educator of the Year. For many years, Prchal blended the work ethic she knew as a child growing up on a farm with lessons on how to make and wisely spend money. She uses hands-on lessons in her classrooms with lessons like button-making for homecoming, visiting a factory, an incinerator and recycling plants plus trips to BizzTown among others as ways to teach students the importance of working to make money to acquire things they want and need. The BizzTown exercise includes teaching students the importance of taking and repaying loans for their business, she said.
“They have to get kids to come to their business and see their products,” Prchal said.
The button-making proposal has students designing, mass-producing and selling buttons during homecoming. Students vote on their favorite design for mass production. The sales generate money to put back into the community, Prchal said. A few years back, the school donated money toward the veterans’ memorial. Money has also been donated to the Ronald McDonald House, she said.
She has taken advantage of...
To see more on this story pick up the June 18, 2026 print edition of The New Prague Times.