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The following information was provided by the Parkway School District in a news release.

Parkway fourth grader, Surya Jaladi and fifth grader, Bennett Davis, are wowing Wall Street with their financial acumen. Surya just won first place and ranked best in Missouri in the “InvestWrite” essay competition, which challenges fourth to 12th graders to analyze an investment scenario and write an essay offering investment advice. In his essay, Surya explained why Netflix was his top stock pick.

Meanwhile, Bennett Davis won second place in his region in the Missouri Stock Market Game, which requires students to monitor daily global market activity and economic factors that drive investment. Bennett arrives early each day to Elsie Rafferty’s social studies class in the MOSAICS Academy to check on stock prices.

The Stock Market Game and InvestWrite are sponsored by the Missouri Council on Economic Education.  Both Bennett and Surya will be honored at a dinner in April at Wells Fargo Associates in St. Louis.

Rafferty says her class often resembles the New York Stock Exchange. Last year, another of her MOSAICS Academy students, Rose Ho, placed second nationally in the InvestWrite competition. Ho now attends West Middle.