Allen High School’s DECA club has made it to the State championships after winning districts. This year, they took 67 people to state.
DECA stands for Distribution Education Clubs of America and is an organization for business and marketing students.
“[Deca] prepares emerging leaders in career paths and marketing, business admi,n hospitality, and even finance and entrepreneurship,” DECA president and senior Preeti Makam said.
Students involved in DECA are also in charge of the Eagle Edge store.
“We run our Eagle Edge store, where we create merchandise in-house,” Makam said. “You’ll see them when you go to check out… We calculate finances, file invoices, and our purchasing team purchases all of our food, snacks, anything we need.”
The skills they learn in class can help them prepare and perform well at a competitive level. Allen’s DECA students go to states yearly, “[with a] 60 to 75% qualification rate,” according to Makam.
“[This year] We have 67 kids that qualified for state-level competition, and then once we go to state,” DECA advisor and business teacher Susan Rowley said. “Most kids have the opportunity to qualify for international level competition, which is pretty cool; it’ll be everybody from the United States and kids from 9 other countries.”
With the state meeting on March 6, DECA students will use class time to help prepare.
“We’re doing five practice role plays, and we have to practice our tests too, for the multiple choice portion,” DECA social media manager Junior Deacon Myatt said. “To make sure the members are prepared.”
“[Once they are done practicing] they have to present to either one of our fellow officers, so that way we can ensure that they’re prepared and we can give feedback on how to improve and so on,” said Makam.
At the competition, the members either choose to do a written event or a roleplay event where they will assume the role of someone in a position of management and business and try to figure out the problem.
“You’ll have a performance indicator that you have to hit, and if you do good and you assume the role well and show that you know what you’re talking about on a business level, then you can move on and advance from district, state, and nationals,” said Myatt.
