Here at Highlands High School, a new wave of entrepreneurship is sweeping through as students take their skills into their businesses. 

From photography to bakeries, student-owned businesses have been offering Highlanders great opportunities and skills to use here at school, along with in the real world. These handful of students are learning valuable skills.

At Highlands, student-owned businesses are more than just ordinary businesses. They are businesses that are setting these students up for their future careers and success. 

“I run a freelance photography business where either I am behind the camera shooting portraits or just event photography. I’ll be doing stuff that’s with video, directing photography for video, or I’m just an assistant on the set, just really getting myself anywhere that I can be,” Ashton Willis (12) said.

Students at Highlands fully manage their own businesses and are responsible for taking care of them along with the responsibilities of everyday life.

“I own a bakery. I’ve always loved baking and my best friend’s dad opened up the Hidden Chapter bookstore. He asked if I could be his baker, so I just jumped on the opportunity,” Lillian Foley (11) said.

Students with these businesses must have effective time management skills.

“It’s a lot sometimes, but I have help. My friends help me and they get service hours for that and then my mom helps me and it’s a lot of just, like, working around my schedule and when I can drop off and when I have time to make everything,” Foley said.

To promote these businesses, students use social media to their advantage.

“I would say a lot of I use social media as more of a journal, but the stuff that I give out to people, it kind of sells itself on social media with just what somebody posts and somebody sees it and somebody reaches out. So I would say I use it to reach out to other people,” Willis said.

Funding these businesses can be a very hard thing to do. Some students get donations, while others start from scratch.

“I got my first camera and lens from my dad, which was a huge blessing, and it was not the worst setup, but it was like the camera was older than I was. And the lens was as well. And that limitation kind of helped me build,” Willis said.

Starting a business is no easy task. Students have definitely faced hard challenges on the way to their success. But it was well worth it, thanks to all the lessons and skills they have learned along the way.