DECA

What DECA is

• GCPS describes DECA as designed for students to learn marketing, management and entrepreneurial skills.
• Members take part in a local, state and national competitive events program that puts them in front of the business community.
• Many events are role-plays: a student gets a business scenario, prepares briefly, then presents a solution to a judge.
• Chapters also run service, leadership and school-based business projects.

What DECA is not

• Not the same as FBLA, which centers on general business and leadership.
• Not only for students who want a marketing career. The events cover finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship too.
• Mainly a high school organization. Ask whether your child's school has a chapter at their grade level.
• Not a GCPS-run league. Georgia DECA sets the competitions.

Who runs it

A marketing teacher advises the chapter. GCPS lists DECA among its career and technical student organizations under CTAE. Georgia DECA runs the region and state competitions, and top finishers can advance to the international level.

Season and calendar

Chapters meet through the school year. Georgia DECA's Region Competition is in early December, with registration due in the fall. The State Career Development Conference is in late January in Atlanta. Students who qualify at state can go on to DECA's international competition in the spring. Confirm locally — the adviser sets deadlines.

How kids get on DECA

• Ask whether your child must be enrolled in a marketing course to join.
• Ask about dues, competition registration and travel costs.
• Ask how students pick events and how they practice role-plays.
• Ask how many students the chapter takes to region and state.
• Ask about chapter officer roles and school-based business projects.

A teacher or school sponsor runs the group. Not every GCPS school offers this, and availability changes year to year — confirm at your child's school before you plan around it.

Who sponsors this at your child's school is a school question. Ask the front office, the counselor, or the teacher who runs the group. GCPS Insider does not keep a live sponsor list and cannot tell you who the coach is. Please do not email us to find a sponsor, meeting time, or roster.

Questions to ask the school

1. Does my child need to be in a marketing class to join DECA?
2. What are dues and conference costs, and who covers them?
3. How are events chosen, and how does the chapter prepare students?
4. Who competes at region, and how does a student advance to state?
5. When does the chapter meet, and how are officers chosen?

Schools we have seen list DECA

This list is incomplete on purpose and is not a directory. We only list what we have actually seen a school publish, so a school missing here may still run the program — and a school listed here can drop it.

Still verifying. We have not published a DECA school list yet and we will not invent a count. Browse the schools directory and check a school's own page, and tell us what your school offers — that link is for adding a school, not for asking who the sponsor is.

Who sponsors this at your child's school is a school question. Ask the front office, the counselor, or the teacher who runs the group. GCPS Insider does not keep a live sponsor list and cannot tell you who the coach is. Please do not email us to find a sponsor, meeting time, or roster.

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