Students of all grade levels enjoy DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America), a club sponsored by English teacher Nicholas Confino, which exposes students to the business world through competitions. DECA meets virtually, after school, every other Tuesday.

DECA is an international organization that works at the high school and college levels to provide business and leadership opportunities to students. They host competitions for their 220,000 high school members in over 3,700 schools all across the United States, Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico and Germany. According to their website, DECA’s main goal is to prepare students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship.

DECA hosts different competitions each year. These competitions can be individual or group events with different topics, all relating to business. “Last year, all the students traveled to Baltimore for the state competition,” Confino said.

This year, due to the coronavirus, all of DECA’s events are virtual. They meet every other Tuesday, after school, via zoom. According to Confino, these meetings are in preparation for the next DECA competition, which will be held virtually.

DECA is a student-led club, with over 40 active members. The small group of officers leading DECA play a large role in the management and leadership of the club. “The kids go to the DECA website and download training videos and PowerPoints; it’s very student-led,” Confino said.

Despite this year’s setbacks, the club still has educational and fun events planned. Currently, they are doing a virtual business challenge in which they chose a fake business to try to run. “I’m working on running a fake restaurant with a friend of mine and we have to fix the setup of the room, figure out how much we’re paying the workers, decide what menu items we’re going to have and how much to sell the items for,” freshman Divya Subramanian said.

One thing that DECA tries to do is provide practical educational opportunities. The business competitions, leadership meetings expose members to real-world situations. “DECA will definitely help me in the real world,” Subramanian said

Another aspect that the club emphasizes is a sense of community. This was one of the reasons that Confino decided to sponsor DECA. “The DECA students are so dedicated to improving the club that they recognize it doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, all they want is for the students to have a great experience,” Confino said.

DECA is not only for business and entrepreneurship opportunities. The club works on empowering a generation of leaders. According to the DECA website, more than 88% of DECA members say their experience empowered them to be an effective leader. “There are a lot of students who know that they’re going to pursue a business career and also recognize that starting to educate themselves about the business world is a great way to start a career early,” Confino said.