RTA middle school economics students learned how to invest in the Stock Market big time. While not using "money," the students still won big and walked away with a nice recognition.

Paul Murphy, RTA Math Department Chair guided the Economics Class to first place in the Virginia state student stock market competition in the middle school grouping of 21 different middle schools statewide.

RTA also had the second-place team in the state comprised of Benjamin Addy and Henry Solomonsky out of 1,367 students in middle and high school throughout the state.

The winning team along with Mr. Murphy and Rabbi Elisha Paul recently attended an awards ceremony.

The Stock Market awards banquet was held at the Richmond branch of the Federal Reserve Bank where RTA's winning team was treated to a kosher lunch, where all the top teams in Virginia shared their winning investment strategies.

Mr. Murphy explained that the students in RTA's economics class participated in the "Stock Market Game."

He said, "While I helped guide them to get them started and answered questions along the way, they were on their own to pick the companies they wanted to invest in during the competition and develop investment strategies. The students researched and applied their investment ideas in a real-world market environment. They spent part of each class working on on the Stock Market Game."

Also, during the Fall session, Hadassah Mizrahi ranked 2nd among the middle school teams in the Central Region.

VCEE (Virginia Council on Economic Education) in partnership with colleges and universities, supports a network of Centers for Economic Education across Virginia, including one at VCU. The VCEE manages a number of programs including the Stock Market Game.