On April 12, Emerson High school members of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) got the chance to participate in the FCCLA State Championship in Dallas, Texas after being successful at the Region III Leadership Conference in February. Emerson students took this as a chance to impress the judges and they achieved medals for their excellent work.

One area of the FCCLA competition is assessment taking. Members take a 50 question assessment based on the key knowledge of FCCLA. Unfortunately, Emerson students had to use their phones to take the test because there were not enough Wi-Fi spots for all the Chromebooks. Despite this challenge, two members got a silver medal and three received a gold medal.

“I think my group did pretty well. I mean, we pulled together a little last minute because we didn’t fully memorize the script for our presentation, but I think we did really well. Our energy was up and the judges seemed to like it, so I think we did pretty good stuff,” President of Emerson’s FCCLA, Keira Severin, 12, said.

Three years ago, Emerson introduced the organization, FCCLA to encourage students to improve on career-ready skills like time management, professionalism and leadership by doing career-based activities, projects and competitions that are based on the career that the student would want to be in. The club is advised by Katey De La Cruz and Rachel Oglesby, both teachers at Emerson.

“They learn how to become a leader. They learn all those leadership skills of how to manage their time, how to be responsible for their own work and be accountable for their own part of the project,” De La Cruz said.

FCCLA participates in many competitions throughout the school year, where members present a portfolio or display boards with a group or by themselves to judges. Members have been preparing their presentations since December and presented them during regionals in February. Students got a chance to improve their projects with the judges feedback before they presented it again at the state championship.

“It helps a lot with being able to work with other people, like teamwork, especially in a professional setting. It helps with leadership and taking on more responsibility,” Severin said.

Emerson’s journey to the state championship within three years of operation, reflects not just their hard work, but also the encouragement from their peers and advisors. FCCLA worked together in order to complete their projects on time and used their resources as a solution. 

“I see how much it changes my students when they go to competitions, like how much more confident they get, how excited they are that they are doing something on their own,” De La Cruz said.