Taylor Kopel, 16, had seen better days.

“I had $1,000, just got a job at the pizza place, and then I got a $2,500 DUI. I can’t get a loan because my credit’s horrible. Now I’m in jail,” Kopel said.

But before Kopel’s parents prepared to call an attorney or picked up the phone for a bail bonding company, they could relax and breathe a sigh of relief — Kopel’s “jail time” was all just a simulation to show him and other John Milledge Academy juniors a taste of post-graduation life.

The students’ experiences were courtesy of the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce’s Reality Check, a program designed to show students the importance of staying in school, pursuing a post-high school education, and how having that education can mean the difference between owning a nice home and renting an apartment or even being forced to borrow money from the bank to help pay off a new car.

“It was either sell my house and live on the streets, or leave it all for my family and go to jail, so I chose to go to jail with — $1,500,” Kopel said.

In Kopel’s case, he was making $2,480 a month, and the family that would take care of his house while he spent time behind bars was a wife making $700 a month and a 3-year-old-daughter.

Like Kopel, all 41 JMA juniors participating in the program Thursday received a randomly assigned job that came with a monthly salary, deducted taxes, a net income and, if “married,” a possible spouse’s income that combined with all other figures to provide a total income that would be used for areas such as clothing, food, transportation, insurance, babysitters, dining out, checking and savings accounts, and other real world-related items.

“I think it opens their eyes to the economics of what they’ll have to deal with in the next few years. I think that they sort of have an idea what their parents are doing,” Cissy Lane, chemistry and physics teacher with JMA, said.

John Pittman, 17, learned an expensive lesson about vehicle maintenance when he was caught off guard, and found himself having to budget for his Honda Accord.

Despite making a simulated $2,667 per month, the expenses were still piling up for the unfortunate JMA junior.

“I had to buy a new transmission at $450, and now I’m $250 in the hole. I had to get a second job,” Pittman lamented.

The possibility of unforeseen circumstances such as those are what the Chamber is hoping sinks in for students such as 16-year-old Josh Hartzell, who, as a simulated power line worker making $3,000 a month, married with a working spouse and a 3-year-old child, seemed to be fairing better than some of his fellow classmates.

“It’s been going pretty good. I think the most expensive was the house at $700 a month, but daycare cost me $375,” Pittman said. “I didn’t realize all the things I would have to need. It definitely makes you appreciate what your parents have been doing.”

Those remarks were encouraging comments for JMA economics and history teacher Cindy Nunn, who helped shuffle students from table to table during Thursday morning’s 1 1/2 hour-long event.

“I think it’s great. These kids sometimes show no clue on what it’s going to cost them. They’re really surprised at how little they can be making. A lot of them have said that they thought that they were going to start out making $5,000 to $7,000 a month,” Nunn said.