The DECA store opened a month after school started after the students had fully gained the skills in order to open the store without problems.
“My students have a lot of training, that’s why we usually open a month into school, that’s because we go through intense training, as soon as school starts. But it’s considered a learning lab so it’s just like a science lab, so their constantly learning while their in their on how to be ready for a job someday, or gaining those skills of working at a retail establishment, ” Ms Rust-Matter said.
Despite them having to navigate around lunchtime, they have a schedule that allows them to be open all three lunches. “My class is split, so I’m supposed to be teaching during that time. It’s fourth period, so we split our students so that half the students are in the classroom and half the students are in the store.”
They have been able to do this due to having shifts and changes in groups. “There’s two shifts, its first shift and second shift and we rotate at the ending of second lunch, ” said Jessica Guzman (’24).
This schedule helps make sure that the students working at the store that week can still have time to eat lunch. “So the people inside the classroom depending on their job, they’ll take on posters and promote the store outside of actually being in it, and accounting, in the tills with the money we make,” said Grace Coughlin (’26).
Deciding on food to sell is very important as well, this is hard due to some regulations, because of this Ms Rust-Matter has to work around them. “The smart snacks, that is, the USDA regulations for schools, and so, pretty much everything has to be sugar free, low cal, low sodium, so It’s very difficult to find snack items that meet those requirements”
A second problem with regulations is why they can’t take credit cards. “Well our district does not allow it, otherwise we would definitely take it, but the school district is not accepting cards” Ms Rust-Matter said.
