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Schools

Dearborn Students Become Business Professionals

As members of Dearborn High's Business Professionals of America team prepare for state championships, they're building on a record of wins and recognition.

Business suits and multi-media presentations about the national economy are something that many of us associate with the boardroom–not the classroom.

But in teacher Pam Phillips' classrooms at , some students are learning the skills they need to begin successful careers in business–and they’re fine-tuning those capabilities on their own time as part of the school’s Business Professionals of America chapter.

Several members of the group are fresh off of several wins at the BPA Regional Leadership Conference at . At the event, Dearborn High students placed first, winning 14 events of 15 entered. Twenty-five students competed in the events, which include creating multi-media presentations, solving issues within small businesses, creating a blueprint for a business, and solving complex information technology problems.

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Phillips said she couldn’t be prouder of her team.

“Our students did great,” she said. “There was even one event where we took the top four awards–so we did very, very well.”

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Phillips, who teaches information technology and Microsoft at DHS, said BPA helps students prepare for careers in business.

“We teach them everything from how to go handle themselves in a place of business, to how to apply to jobs,” she said. “I recently told a student who applied for a job at Dairy Queen to take a resume, and she got the job. We tell the students they can’t just do what they’re capable of; they must do their very best.”

The BPA competition is made up of several categories, including small business, media production, presentation skills, and accounting and finance, to name but a few.

Serina Beydoun, 17 and a senior at Dearborn High, helped answer the question of how the bipartisan super committee that was formed to save the federal budget should have balanced the country’s finances.

“We saw a lot of duplication of efforts,” she said of her group's research. “There were various programs that were meant to address things like teacher improvement; we thought many of these things could be combined to save money.”

Senior Mahamad Charawi, 17, competed in the presentation management category–something he's learned about in his BPA chapter.

“Our topic is online learning at schools, and many of us know of websites and people who can make online learning possible at school,” he said. “There were a lot of decisions that needed to be made, and we worked together as a unit to make sure we were on the same page.

Moied Charawi, Mahamad’s 16-year-old brother, is also competing. He said the most important part of BPA is that is teaches young people what a functionally-collaborative workplace looks like.

“I honestly think the biggest part of this is teamwork,” said Moied Charawi. “We’re doing a lot of the things that people would do in the workplace.”

Dearborn High’s BPA will move onto the state championships in Grand Rapids in March, and then possibly the national championships in Chicago in April.

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