Mentor Hosts First Regional DECA Competition
This was the first time many of our students have ever participated in an in-person DECA competition
February 2, 2023
On Thursday, January 26, Mentor High School hosted its first regional DECA competition in the Paradigm. All of the junior and senior students in the CTE Marketing and Business Administration Program from MHS participated as well as students from Parma, Bedford, Cleveland Heights, Strongsville, and Maple Heights High Schools, Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools, as well as Auburn and Lorain County Career Centers.
DECA is a non-profit student organization that educates young leaders and entrepreneurs and prepares them for the business world. Every year, the organization hosts international competitions for both high school and college students to challenge their knowledge and apply what they have learned to real-world scenarios. Students are able to compete in any area that suits their interests, including sports and entertainment marketing, retail merchandising, principles of hospitality, marketing communications, human resources management, accounting, business finance, and more.
To briefly review the nature of the competition, each student in the competition will be responding to a particular role-play scenario that they will receive the moment they enter the preparation room. From there, they will be given 10 minutes to read the scenario regarding their event and create a presentation addressing the prompt in the scenario. Once the time limit is up, competitors will be transferred into a room with a judge who plays the part of “boss” in the role play, and the competitors will give their 7-10 minute verbal presentation to them.
While the competition time is brief, the stress of the competition is high, for students are required to have mastered 5 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in order to score well. KPIs are the important main ideas that come from each event. For example, in the Marketing Communications series, competitors are required to know about things like corporate branding, content use for social media, digital marketing, the nature of corporate branding, etc. Competitors are given their KPIs before the competition, but trying to find facts about those topics that stand out is challenging.
This is the first time that most of the students have ever participated in an in-person DECA competition unless they went to states in March 2022. Since the Coronavirus Pandemic prompted DECA to make regionals virtual for the past few years, students now have the opportunity to get the real competition experience.
“We were fortunate to be able to host our annual DECA district competition for the first time in a first class facility at the Mentor Paradigm,” wrote Mr. McKnight, one of the Marketing and Business instructors. “We truly appreciate the support of Mentor Schools and the Mentor community in allowing us this opportunity.”
Last year, Mentor’s team had fourteen DECA state qualifiers who travelled to Columbus to compete with students from all over Ohio, and this year we are sending more!
Here are the Mentor students who qualified to go to the states competition:
Congratulations to all of the MBA students who are going to Columbus in March! Best of luck at the state competition.
Does this resume-building opportunity interest you? Check out the Marketing and Business Administration Program’s page on the Lake Shore Compact website. See how you can become involved in a class that educates high school students into being the business men and women of tomorrow.
Check out some pictures of the event that were taken by Dr. Glavan, Mr. McKnight, and Evelyn Megery:
