By Jay Sorgi • Posted October 1, 2025

Pope John Paul II High School in Royersford is giving students what their principal calls “a leg up” in growing their understanding of the business world via a new curriculum with state-of-the-art technology provided by one of the world’s most respected business information platforms.

The school has instituted the Pope John Paul II (PJP) Business Institute, becoming the first high school in Pennsylvania to offer the Bloomberg Business Certification Program. The school held a grand opening and blessing for the institute Sept. 23. See photos here.

“Students will have a much broader understanding of the business world than if they just took a course where somebody’s lecturing to them,” said PJP Principal Kathleen Guyger. “They’re going to be hands-on digging in, getting that greater understanding.”

Teachers will educate students in a setting that makes them feel like they’re in a Fortune 500 boardroom, replete with stock-market “ticker tape” updates and the top industry technology through Bloomberg’s own information terminals.

Guests who saw the new center at the grand opening admitted to wishing they had such tools when they went to school.

“One parent commented, ‘This is nicer than my office,’” said Guyger. “They’re jealous that they didn’t get the opportunity to receive this with their own education, but they’re very excited about their students’ opportunities. They’re making sure that their kids are going to take classes that get them in that center and expose them to that material.”

Courses within the program will include Introduction to Finance, Business Analytics, Finance Fundamentals, Sales and Marketing, Trading Challenges, and Understanding the Supply Chain.

Many students will receive opportunities to go to Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York, while also receiving classroom time from the company’s educators.

Many of these courses will allow students to get the kind of certifications rarely available outside of colleges and professional circles.

“The Bloomberg curriculum has four different certificates that the students can achieve here before they graduate, where they would normally get them when they’re in the college level, so they would have them going into the business world,” said Guyger.

“It gives them that background and that understanding beforehand, and I hope that (will) help our students rise to the top.”

Students in the program will also receive access to the kind of technology that most business professionals hope to have at their fingertips.

Even the school’s English and environmental science teachers will be able to take advantage of the tools.

“It’s not just that you’re pulling the most recent stock market numbers. You could pull all kinds of data about a business,” said Guyger.

“You can pull shipping information. We can pull up where ships are at any time. You can find out about indexes, mutual funds, but also things about the businesses themselves. ‘Why is this business now going on the stock market exchange? Why is it now going public?’

“They have an AI device that summarizes information. Maybe the interest rates dropped, and I want to see all the articles about that. I can search it on the terminal through Bloomberg News which curates it, and I then know that those articles are trusted articles.”

The launch of the institute comes one year ahead of the state mandate for all high school students to take a personal finance class.

“I think we’re giving our students not only the course that they’re required to take, but they’re going way above and beyond what kids in a typical classroom setting are going to get next year,” said Abbey Fenton, PJP’s director of marketing and communications. “Our timing could not be more perfect in opening this business institute.”

Guyger adds that the coursework, technology, certification programs, and experiences in the institute will allow students to differentiate between the varied pathways they could take in the business world.

“The Bloomberg terminals will help with finance, economics and supply chain studies,” said Guyger. “If you don’t like doing that, then you’ll know that and you may want to go more toward marketing or something like that.”

Students know that regardless of which path they may take in the business world, they will have received formation that integrates top technology and business courses within a Catholic education.

“We always are educating the whole person,” said Guyger. “We’ll be teaching somebody how they can (thrive) in the business world, and still be a person who believes in God and who lives their life following God.

“We are constantly bringing God into our everyday lives. We’re living it and we’re teaching our kids how to live it, and we’re talking to them about it. If you can’t do that, then why are we here? I don’t think that the Business Institute is any different.”