Schools Scene

CHAMPS: RFH’s Fed Challenge Team

The Rumson Fair Haven High School Fed Challenge Team prepares for its final presentation Pictured:Alyssa Munley, Meghan Carolan, Pascal Johnstone, Thomas Crow, Peter O’Connor and William Francis.
Photo/RFH

They met an economic challenge and conquered it as champs.

Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School’s (RFH) Fed Challenge Team has been dubbed Group Champions of the High School Fed Challenge, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The High School Fed Challenge is a competition designed to bring real-world economics into the classroom. Teams play the role of monetary policymakers by analyzing economic conditions and recommending a course of action for monetary policy. Roughly 70 high schools from the tri-state area participate each year.

Advised by Stephanie Pennetti for the past five years, RFH’s Fed Challenge Club is popular among economics students and performs consistently well in the contest each year.  

This year the club’s more than members met with local economists and the Rutgers Fed Challenge Team to help prepare for the competition. Once the competition team was selected, they attended an orientation at the New York Federal Reserve Bank in February.  

The team was composed of Alyssa Munley, Meghan Carolan, Pascal Johnstone, Thomas Crow, Peter O’Connor and William Francis, all juniors and seniors in advanced economics courses.

On March 11, the RFH team traveled to New York City and delivered a 12-minute presentation on the economy, followed by a 13-minute question-and-answer session with New York Fed economists and staff serving as judges.  

After earning the highest score in their bracket (usually a preliminary round, however, the final this year due to national health concerns), they were named their Group Champion.  

— Edited press release from RFH