By Summer Crawford

News Editor

@summercrawford

Every year the Coppell High School Business Professionals of America (BPA) club competes at three levels of competition: regionals, state and nationals. The 2015 school year has proven to be a whole new atmosphere for the club, seeing as a record 68 students qualified at state. Adding another tally mark to their board of success was another 19 students qualifying for nationals.

From March 4-7, the CHS BPA club competed in the state competition at the Sheraton Convention Center in Dallas. Students were able to participate in both individual and team events, excelling in their presentational skills across the board. The icy weather on March 5 did not deter these perseverant students, and soon enough the announcement was made that Coppell had reaped first place overall.

“This is the most we have ever taken to nationals,” head BPA sponsor and computer science teacher Jan McClintock said. “This is our fourth state championship and it has been quite a few years since we had the last one. We had quite a few that made finals, and if you make finals you are either a qualifier or an alternate.”

Although there were 19 qualifiers, only 17 will be attending nationals due to International Baccalaureate exams being the same days as the competition. Nationals will be May 6-10 at Anaheim, Calif.

Out of the several teams that competed at state, the three teams that will advance to nationals are global marketing, network design and presentation management. The four members of the network design team had already given last year’s nationals a shot and are looking to prosper. One of the four members, junior Meghana Vankina, is also one of the four BPA officers this year.

“There were about 30 or 40 teams in our event at state [and] we got second place,” Vankina said. “One of the reasons [we stood out] is [that] we are an all girls team, and it is rare to see an all girls team in a topic such as network design, because it’s more of a stereotypical boy topic. I like BPA so much because this year I am an officer and I enjoy being able to see different types of people come in and try different topics and to see this trial and error process.”

A huge aspect of what makes BPA unique is that not only do students get to explore their own interests in categories, but they also have to dedicate a large part of their lives outside of school to researching and preparing their elaborate presentations for various competitions.

“The students primarily pick which group they want to be in, we try to make everybody do an individual event and a team event for regionals; it is really up to the students and where their interests are,” McClintock said. “They have to know how to dress, how to speak, how to interact with people from other cities and then at nationals from other states. It is a real life conference environment.”

Having previous experience with state, senior Shreya Chandrasekar was able to earn fifth place in the individual category of advanced spreadsheet applications.

“Something really unique about spreadsheet is that it is very applicable to the real world so [the] skills that I [learned] in [Business and Industry Marketing] classes came in handy,” Chandrasekar said. “I have learned that skills that you learn in the classroom and [the] software that we use are actually applicable in the real world, no matter if you’re going into business or technology. I learned how to use my classroom skills in real world situations.”

Working in teams of typically 2-4 students has proven beneficial for club members. While individual events are doable, having several members to rely on when it comes to typing up hours of research and answering tough on-the-spot questions in front of judges only makes BPA stronger.

“I competed in a team event called global marketing with three other people; we got second place,” sophomore Jonathan Goh said. “Our group was pretty diverse, we tried to keep it so that everyone had some outstanding part to the presentation so that we would all combine and make a super powerful team. BPA has taught me that the group is everything.”

After 20 years of leading BPA, McClintock is more than thrilled to be attending nationals. She and sponsor and graphic design teacher Cynthia Wolfe could not be more proud of the whole BPA chapter and their showcases.

“At nationals I will get my 20 year certificate for BPA,” McClintock said. “It is something I have done ever since I started teaching, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I have been on the state board [and] I am currently on the nationals boards. It is in my blood: both of my children went all the way through school and were in BPA and currently both still judge events.”