Clarence High School Students Learn Business Operations During Trip to Disney
Clarence High School Students Learn Business Operations During Trip to Disney
Updated
Students in Clarence High School’s Academy of Business and Finance had fun as they learned about the behind-the-scenes operations of Walt Disney World.
The March 9-12, 2026 trip saw students from Clarence join with counterparts from Lake Shore High School to take part in workshops about the operations of the park and how they prepare the thousands of staff, or cast members in Disney terminology, to accommodate guests at the park each day.
“They’re skilled in their training and showing students their logistical work, analytics and problem solving,” said business teacher and academy advisor Heather Hartmann. “Their lessons reinforced the things we’re trying to teach in the academy throughout the school year.”
In addition to seeing the scale of the operations of the park, the Clarence students also took part in team building activities and games with students from Lake Shore, among them a scavenger hunt that had students giving items like ice cream to random park guests.
“It was fun to work with people we’ve never worked with before,” said senior Samantha Angler, one of the students who traveled down for the trip. “It was interesting to see their perspective on how they did things. They were very dedicated.”
Samantha said the trip was the first time she had been to a Disney park, and “it was cool to see how everything ran and how they made everyone happy. There’s more that goes into it than it seems.”
Hartmann said she was shared compliments by other park guests on the students’ positive behavior during the trip.
The Clarence High School Academy of Business and Finance is a three-year experience for students which pairs skill-developing curriculum with work-based learning opportunities, preparing students for business careers and higher education. The program is affiliated with the national NAF organization.
More information about the academy can be found at https://www.clarenceschools.org/schools/clarence-high-school/academics/academy-of-business-and-finance/what-is-the-academy.
