Jefferson High School looking to start its own DECA chapter as it moves statewide to local

Students at Jefferson High School are working to start their own chapter of a career and technical student organization, after it went from being statewide to only in the Sioux Falls School District.

The club is DECA Inc., short for its former name of Distributive Education Clubs of America. Student advisors from DECA clubs at Lincoln and Roosevelt high schools visited Jefferson’s new DECA club Tuesday afternoon to talk about the perks and what they’ve learned from it.

What does DECA do for students?

Rut Patel, state president for DECA in South Dakota and a student at Roosevelt High School, said DECA is a business club where students compete and work on their entrepreneurship skills in fields like hospitality, marketing and communication. She said it’s helped her build her communication skills over the years.

Graci Sheriff, vice president of leadership and competition for DECA in South Dakota and a student at Lincoln High School, said she was uplifted into DECA by her sister, who encouraged her to participate in it. Sheriff said she’s had fun traveling, learning more about business and developing her social skills.

DECA in 2017: Record number of students attend state career conference

Sofia Herrera, vice president for marketing for DECA in South Dakota and a Roosevelt High School student, said DECA has taught her new speech and leadership skills as this is the first leadership position she’s had. She said DECA has helped her realize she wants to go into marketing later in life.

How many students participate in DECA in South Dakota?

State DECA advisor Tina Miller said 44 students participate in Harrisburg, 19 at Lincoln High School, 12 at Roosevelt High School and however many join from Jefferson and Washington High Schools this year.

At Roosevelt, one of Patel and Herrera’s projects for DECA is to run and market the school store together. That’s one of the projects Jefferson students started to envision Tuesday afternoon, brainstorming ways their peers can “lead, serve, include and compete” regarding the culture of the school store.

DECA helps students get ready for life experiences and exposes them to other interests they may not have known about before, said Jose González, marketing and personal finance teacher and DECA advisor at Jefferson High School. At competitions, students from DECA can meet people from all around the world and network with like minded individuals, he added.

Jefferson’s new club has a couple of months to prepare for the state DECA career development conference Feb. 11-12 in Sioux Falls, which could see them qualify for the national conference. The International Career Development Conference will be held April 25-30 in Anaheim, California for those who qualify.

DECA helps South Dakota students build career skills

DECA functions similarly to other career and technical student organizations like Future Business Leaders of America or Future Farmers of America, but it used to be statewide instead of just being run through the state’s largest school district.

The South Dakota Department of Education’s Division of Career and Technical Education contracted with the University of South Dakota for several years for $30,000 for USD to serve as the consultant with the state and serve as a liaison between the state and local DECA chapters, and between the national DECA organization and state DECA organization.

That changed during the last two years as at the 2023 state DECA leadership event, 98 students competed: 11 from Harrisburg and 87 from Sioux Falls, according to an April 11 letter from state CTE director Laura Scheibe to Sioux Falls high school principals and DECA advisors.

Harrisburg's DECA club: Harrisburg students learn hands-on business lessons in launch of Tiger Balloons

“This has been a consistent trend for years and speaks to the reality that DECA is not a statewide program,” Scheibe said in the letter.

In that letter, Scheibe said the DOE determined it was in the best interest of the program to be run locally instead of from the state level effective July 1.

The DOE and Sioux Falls School District signed a memorandum of understanding Sept. 6 for the district to maintain the DECA programs and supervise all the students in DECA events.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Jefferson High School students working on starting DECA chapter