About 100 elementary school students from Orange got a chance to run their own city in Edison.
EDISON -- The students spent hours during the year learning how to run businesses, handle finances and run a city -- but that was in a classroom.
Thursday was the time for the students of several elementary schools from Orange to show what they learned from Junior Achievement of New Jersey's JA BizTown program -- by running their own town for the day.
They had to role play chief executives of companies and make speeches to convince people to use their products. They had to be bank tellers, medical technologists, utility workers, design engineers, politicians.
Junior Achievement's new facilities at Raritan Center are set up as a mini Main Street and the children, fourth, fifth and sixth graders, had no time to talk -- they had work to do.
They had help from volunteers who work with various businesses and give their time.
Edison Mayor Thomas Lankey had advice for his counterpart, Mayor Luis Perez, 11 -- "make sure you keep taxes low. Then you keep everyone happy."
Perez said he really enjoyed the program and really "like being mayor."
The students receive "pay checks" and have to learn how to use them wisely--how much to put in checking accounts, how much to save and how much they can spend.
Dawn Schwartz, senior vice president for development, communications and capstones for Junior Achievement of New Jersey, said the program is offered free of charge to the schools.
Schwartz said the program starts with 13 teacher-taught lessons and culminates with the day-long field trip that the students experienced in Edison Thursday.
Junior Achievement also has a program for high school students known as JA Finance Park.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.