This year’s senior class is the first to be required to take an economics course.

The Mississippi Council on Economic Education has been working with the Mississippi Department of Education training teachers statewide of all grade levels to be master economics teachers.

Sue Stevens is special programs coordinator in the Lamar County School District, where the district has more master economics teachers than most other districts in Mississippi.

Although students will take an economics class their senior year, Stevens said the district is building a K-11 curriculum that has economics built in to other subject lessons.

Heather Burch, assistant principal at Northwest Rankin High School, said students take a half-credit government class their senior year anyway, so a semester of economics fits right in.