Three AHS students attended the state FBLA competition this past weekend. The team of two juniors, Xavian Henson and Shadi Hamadeh-Rojas, and one sophomore, Sebastian Delgadillo, has been working together since the regional FBLA competition in February. After competing on Friday, April 8, and Saturday, April 9, the team ended up coming in second and qualifying for nationals.

Specifically, the three students competed under the category of banking and finance. While they were at the competition, which was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Reston, they were given workshops before going up against other teams in the state for the presentation portion.

“To attend the state competition students must come in first or second at the regional phase, which is quite an accomplishment already for those students who represented AHS,” business teacher Gloria Adams said.

The students competed in front of six judges, who initially gave them a prompt about insurance. They were supposed to act as insurance agents, helping a family that was presented to them in a case study. The case study included information about the family’s mortgage, debts and expenses. With this information, they were tasked with finding the proper insurance for the family. After being given the case, they were given 20 minutes to prepare to present to the judges what type of insurance to give the family and why they selected it.

“To get to states, the students had to go through two phases of online testing. They tested second best at the regional level, qualifying them for the state competition. Before they were given their case study, they had to take another online test. They worked hard even before they were given the most difficult task,” FBLA sponsor and business teacher Albert Steppe said.

At the awards ceremony held later that day, the team was awarded second place, qualifying them for nationals. Nationals will be held in Atlanta, Georgia from June 29 to July 2.

“To prepare for nationals we will be studying extra hard on the material that we might compete on, so we will be going over a lot of banking and finance materials,” Delgadillo said. “I was very excited to attend and do well at the state level, so I can only imagine how cool it will be to attend nationals.”