DECA, an abbreviation for Distributive Education Club of America, goal is to help shape young students into the young adults they will become. They do this by teaching all kinds of skills like becoming entrepreneurs in fields like marketing, finance, hospitality, and management careers.
It was founded in Memphis Tennessee in April 1947, and Arlington High School and over 4,000 other high schools across the country, and also offered at a collegiate level. This club focuses on teaching young students how to be leaders, and DECA at AHS meets once a week on Wednesdays in Ms Rust-matter’s room, C105.
“Empowering students to know how to go onto the next level of when they’re in business and marketing, and they give them the confidence to be able to talk to adults, but they also are showing them the skills and how to solve problems. that are business related,” Ms Rust-Matter, teacher and AHS DECA adviser said.
With students getting taught life skills, the AHS program competes in competitive events like role-plays and case studies, prepared events and online simulations; these competitions can go up to a national competition level.
“I got called up on stage to say that I placed and they kept calling names and I kept thinking they were gonna call my name, but they ended up not calling it till the very last cause I got first place,” Peyton Miller (9) said.
The organisation DECA has clubs at a high school level and college levels. These different levels share some aspects and have some differences like an older age demographic, smaller group of people, and more experience.
“They do some of the things same things but at a harder level that you’re competing at, but I feel like the collegiate when I was in it, it was more really preparing you for things like contacts and actual skills on how to get into your career field rather than learning how to deal with situations, it’s just helping to get to the next level,” Rust-Matter said.
Lots of high schools go to competitions to compete for a spot at state, and then a spot at nationals. With lots of high schools being at these events students have the chance to meet more people from different areas.
“Has changed my school experience because I got a lot of new friends from it and I got out of school and I learned a lot of communication and marketing skills through it,” Miller said.
DECA offers over 200,000 dollars worth of scholarships for high school and collegiate DECA members for the International Career Development Conference (ICDC), which can help students tremendously when trying to fund these trips .
“They have lots of different scholarships. There’s scholarships that they will give students if they’re traveling for competitions. There’s also scholarships for kids who need assistance for dress clothes, but they also do scholarships at college scholarships as well,” Rust-Matter said.
Being a part of a nation wide club like DECA comes with lots of benefits, making new friends, learning new skills you would learn in a class and having DECA look good on your college application.
“ It is a great program and I love that I’m a part of it this year. It looks super good on college resumes and college applications, job interviews and it can help with college scholarships,” Kinsey Marchand (9) said.
