The Wheatley School’s DECA club made history at the regional competition held at Plainview Old Bethpage High School on Dec. 14 with a record-breaking 26 students advancing to the state competition.
The event saw 62 students from Nassau County compete in business-related challenges.
Among Wheatley’s top performers were senior Autumn Casella and junior Lawrence Brown who earned first place in the Sports Marketing Management team event, while freshman Jack Basner and senior Vihann Shah took first in Entrepreneurship.
Senior Henry Gucker won first place in Marketing Communications, and freshman Philip Ginzberg secured first in Entrepreneurship.
Other notable achievements included sophomore Arjun Sankaran, who placed third in Business Management, and sophomores Samantha Wo and Sunidhi Ajmera, who earned third in Business Law.
Seniors Bhakyasri Dhama and Madeline Rong also placed third in Buying and Merchandising.
Additionally, 14 Wheatley students qualified for the state competition with strong individual performances: Ben Shamash, Spencer Edelstein, Farhan Rashid, Riyana Parekh, Avinash Chaturvedi, Rich Steinberg, Jonathan Brown, Lily Jarrahy, Saje Menon, Sofia Ng, Ethan Blumberg, Michael Bank, Sami Saleem, and Vicram Dhama.
The students are coached by Kristen Malik, whose guidance has been instrumental in their success. Wheatley’s DECA club now looks forward to competing at the state level in the coming months.
