This year, Oakdale High School (OHS) added a new course to their business department: Principles of Marketing. Marketing is the one of the upper level business classes needed to complete the business pathway. It was newly introduced to Frederick County Public Schools last year. OHS now has multiple courses, exposing students to different business fields. This class touches on many aspects of marketing including: advertising, sports, logistics, and public relations. This is a project based class that involves collaboration. 

Kaelyn Stieg is the teacher for this class. She also teaches Principles of Business Management & Entrepreneurship, Advanced business management, a FCC dual enrollment course, and is the advisor to StartUp Frederick and National Business Honors Society. Stieg has a bachelor of science in marketing communications and worked in marketing prior to teaching. 

It was important to her to bring marketing to OHS because, “There was also a lot of student interest in the topic, so I wanted to offer students the opportunity to prepare them for future college classes and careers,” she expressed. 

Stieg always tries to incorporate some kind of fun into her lessons. Almost every assignment is a partner assignment and sometimes games are a part of the lesson. For example, to review a unit, Stieg created her own version of trashketball to help students engage more. 

The other side of this class is learning about ethics and laws behind marketing. Ethics is a largely expressed topic in any business class. 

Junior Zoraiz Rehan mentioned, “The fundraising and the projects” are his favorite parts of the class. 

Recently, the class held a fundraiser for three different charities of the group’s choice. The charities included Kyle’s Crusaders, the Frederick Humane Society, and Rhythm Changes.

From October 3, 2022 through October 7, 2022, OHS students had the opportunity to donate to these non-profits during their lunch shift. The class had a few days before to prepare posters and video advertisements for the announcements. Overall, the fundraiser was a success, raising a total of over $1200. This was the first of the four biggest projects the class does.

The second project is a media competition where students will “work” for a retail company to try and gain the most sales. The third project will revolve around sports marketing. Finally, the fourth project will also be in sports marketing, where students will look into the Super Bowl media planning. 

As an upper level business course, this is a good class to consider if one is planning to go through the business completion pathway and go into business in the future. “It also offers students the opportunity to earn an industry certification to use for future college and job applications,” Stieg informed.  

Before taking this class, you must have either taken Finance and accounting or Principles of Business Management & Entrepreneurship.