Flo & Progressive Team Teach Millridge Students About Insurance

The fifth-grade students in Karen Sladky's class eventually became enthused about the benefits of auto insurance, but Wednesday morning's class didn't begin that way.

"Is that the real Flo," the Millridge Elementary students asked after the woman in the white Progressive outfit entered the room.

The students received a celebrity visit from a Progressive employee dressed as the company's popular personality as part of the STEM program, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The Flo lookalike — Teresa Grabel — was accompaned by system test engineers from the company's Mayfield Village headquarters.

"We're teaching them about insurance from the standpoint of risk and probability and how we can use math in the real world," quality assurance analyst Anthony Kless said. "We're trying to give them some perspective on it, like, 'this is why we do math.'

"You learn these math concepts in school, but here's how they're used as an adult in the real world."

The Progressive team got that point across through a board game that took students and their ficticious cars from rural areas to the city, showing them places where the likelihood of a crash and the need for insurance would increase.

Most of the students said they no clue about the purpose of insurance before the session. They just knew it was something their parents had.

"You lose money if you crash into a car," fifth-grader Suvan Patel said. "You have to drive safely."

The Progressive engineers, including Flo, have been traveling to schools throughout the area to present the program. They had been in 16 classes in recent weeks prior to the two sessions at Millridge.

Though she was tempted, Sladky didn't let the kids believe the funny woman from Progressive commericials was actually in their classroom.

"I 'fessed up," Sladky said. "I could have had them buy it because she looked just like her."