Junior Dylan Rose was always curious about business incubators, but he never thought one would ever exist at Glenbrook North. So when Rose first heard about the new Entrepreneurship Business Incubator course that would be offered next year, he signed up for it.

“At first I was excited,” said Rose. “I was thinking, ‘What ideas could I bring to it? Where would I take it?’ And as I learned more about it, I was even more interested because I thought, ‘Okay, I could get a mentor and I could dedicate a lot of time to working on something that will definitely help me outside of school.’”

According to business education teacher Mindy Ingersoll, the Entrepreneurship Business Incubator, also known as the Spartan Startup, differs from existing business classes because it is a year-long class that provides students with a template for business, where they can research and test aspects of the company they create. The end goal is to create a viable product.

Ingersoll said students with similar business topic interests will be put into teams and will have mentors from outside of school with expertise in the field work with them in the classroom and guide them through the business process. Mentors include adults in the business profession, alumni and community members.

“The concept is that we have business professionals come into the classroom as experts, teaching the lessons on marketing, finance and operations,” said Ingersoll. “And as a teacher, I am more of a facilitator of the daily activities.”

Mary Kosirog, instructional supervisor of Career and Life Skills, said she first thought of creating a business incubator class when viewing presentations at a conference held by the Association for Career and Technical Education. Kosirog and the business teachers are still in the process of recruiting mentors and garnering funding.

At the end of each school year,  students are scheduled to pitch their individual business ideas to investors with the hope of getting their businesses funded. Only students who receive funding can take the class a second year to run their real business. According to Kosirog, that policy may change based on how the first year goes and what the curriculum looks like for the second year.

“I think this is really innovative,” said Ingersoll. “When I was in college as a business major, it was lecture driven. It wasn’t application. You got that experience through your internships. This is kind of like that, where you’re getting real world experience in the classroom.”

The class is available for sophomores and juniors, and it does not require previous experience. Kosirog said since this is the first time the course will be offered, the department is making some exceptions for seniors who have been in business classes and DECA.

For junior Liam Poczatek, Spartan Startup came to GBN a year too late because, next year as a senior, he would not have the option to run a business for the second year of the class.

“I’m not upset about it,” said Poczatek. “I’m disappointed that I missed part of the opportunity, but overall I’m happy it’s at least here.”

Poczatek said he is excited for the new class because of its hands-on approach.

“This class is all about the real-world environment, how you can introduce [business] into your own life and how it can run,” said Poczatek. “So, this will actually affect the students outside of school and the classroom in a positive manner. In the end, isn’t that what all classes aim for? … So when learning about entrepreneurship, why would you sit down and go through everything when you could be hands-on and walking through it and doing everything yourself?”

Sophomore Ryan Cotler registered for the class and said he is most excited for creating connections in the “outside world” through the mentors.

Rose said his goal for his time in the class is to “learn a lot.”

“Obviously we’re in a school, and that’s the cheesy answer, but it’s impossible to say whether your idea is going to work out, whether you’re going to get funding or not, and when you’re starting a business, that’s always the goal,” said Rose. “But I really want to learn the new steps. And regardless of experience, every time you do something new or something different over a longer period of time, or work with different people, you’re going to learn. You’re going to create new connections. So, that would be my biggest goal, to learn a lot more.”

Kosirog said she wants to move away from the stereotype that kids who take business classes only take them because they want to be businesspersons, and she stresses that this class is available for all students, not only the ones who are interested in getting a business degree in the future.

“It’s for anyone who’s creative and wants to start their own business and wants to learn how to run a business,” said Kosirog. “Whether it’s jewelry-making, or it’s in sciences or math, it can be any type of student who would enjoy and learn a lot from this class.”