Dallastown Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) has been attending the Pennsylvania FBLA State Leadership Conference (SLC) for the past 20 years. The club, which prepares students for careers in business and leadership, has competed in SLC since the first year of the club in 2005.
On Monday, April 7, and Tuesday, April 8, students and advisors traveled to Hershey for the annual competition.
To attend the conference, students had to have a qualifying test score or win a qualifying score in their competitive event after the FBLA Regional Conference, which was held at York College on Dec. 19.
Forty-four students from Dallastown, as well as three advisors, Mr. Donatelli, Mr. Robinson, and Mrs. Guttridge, attended SLC. Students from schools all around the state participated, totaling over 6,100 people at Hershey, allowing Dallastown to socialize with various students and make connections.
“Not only do students compete, but also it’s a conference with business workshops and speakers… they also get to learn from other students on how to perform and present various business-related events,” said Donatelli.
During the conference, students competed against other schools in either performance events or a test on a business-related subject of their choice. Donatelli complimented the event’s well-run nature and the opportunities provided, such as workshops and speakers.
“Some of the highlights were just watching our members do events like sales presentation, public speaking, broadcast journalism, coding, and programming… taking their projects and presenting them to the judges, very energetic and with passion, competing against other chapters and people throughout the school,” Donatelli said.
Senior Ritvika Bal, an FBLA member since her sophomore year, competed in the Accounting I test and won the 5th-place title at States.
“After getting first place regionally, my hopes were still high, though there was the caveat that I relied on information I learned two years ago. Nevertheless, I was able to secure fifth in the States for the test,” Bal said.
The test itself was a 50-minute test with 100 questions, leaving Bal with only 30 seconds per question. Questions in the test tested Bal’s ability to calculate financial ratios, dictate normal balances of accounts, and compute depreciation on merchandise.
“She did a test in accounting, shout out to Mr. Robinson, and she put a lot of effort into studying. She did well with the content of accounting, top 5 in the state out of 100 people, which is amazing,” Donatelli said.
In addition to Bal’s win, Dallastown also placed in various other events. [grade] Jackson Trump won 7th place in Business Law, [grade] Stephen Coulson and Sanjay Satheesth won 9th place in Coding and Programming, senior Chris Nicoara won 7th place in Computer Applications, and senior Muhammad Niazi won 6th place in Agribusiness.
“It always amazes me how much effort and skill certain teams pour into their performance events—from perfecting greetings to the judges to timing how to say the same words simultaneously. As a senior, I hope the underclassmen I saw continue developing their phenomenal abilities to improve and change our world,” Bal said.
The club advisors were proud of the students who competed and took tests this past Monday and Tuesday. In celebration, they all visited Chocolate World for lunch and milkshakes.
Robinson was proud of the students’ timeliness, effort, and professional dress. For improvement at the state next year, Robinson emphasized having more preconference preparation.
“We ran into some stiff competition but did find success with a few top 10 placements,” Robinson said.
Donatelli agreed with Robinson, feeling proud of the students’ efforts.
“The thing I’m most proud about is when the students put themselves in a position to compete at that level, there’s a lot of growth that happens for presentation skills, for knowledge skills, for leadership skills, for networking.”
At Dallastown, FBLA is a serious matter. The club, being one of the largest at Dallastown, plans on attending states again next year and continuing the tradition for the next 20 years.
