What Does DECA Do?

Molly Burns and McClane McMullen|March 20, 2016

Students that are going to nationals

The week of March 15th, 25 Arrowhead DECA students competed at the state level in Lake Geneva, along with 3,000 other students.

Arrowhead High School has a DECA chapter that is run by advisor and business teacher Steve Melzer. On the DECA website it states, DECA, “is an International Association of marketing students, that provides members and advisors with development activities.”

At Arrowhead, the DECA chapter runs Hawkfest in the fall, Marketing Nights during basketball games and Operation Click currently. These events are held throughout the year. DECA members also have the chance to participate in business competitions.

The DECA website states, “As an integral part of the classroom curriculum, DECA’s industry-validated competitive events are aligned with the National Curriculum Standards in the career clusters of marketing, business management and administration, finance, and hospitality and tourism. DECA’s flagship evaluation process involves students in both a written component such as an exam or report and an interactive component with an industry professional serving as a judge. DECA’s competitive events directly contribute to every student being college and career ready when they graduate from high school.”

Students prepared projects for this conference.

Arrowhead students created projects in categories from Fashion Merchandising to Small Business plans. This gave them opportunities for real life business experiences and time management.

Students presented their projects to judges for 15 minutes and then found out if they were able to bring their projects to the national conference.

Along with the projects that students worked on for months, they also participated in role plays.. DECA role plays are real world scenarios that are based on probable business situations. They include problems that need to be solved. Students have 15 minutes to read and prepare for the ten minute presentation to the judge. This event can be done individual or with a partner.

Nick Genetempo is a senior at Arrowhead and has competed at DECA State and Nationals for the past few years. He says, “I think DECA is a great experience that students should take part of. If you know you want to go into the business field this is something that can show you what you will experience when you are older. Great preparation tool.”

The Arrowhead DECA students that will be moving onto the National conference in Nashville, TN from April 27th-30th are: