Students Build Valuable Skills and Connections through DECA

Approximately 250 DDSB students move on to provincial competition to be held in February

On November 4^th, Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby hosted the regional Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) competition for the Nor-Eastern and Private School divisions. Roughly 1900 students from schools in Durham, St. Catharines, and Kingston competed to earn a place at the provincial competition which will be held in Toronto from February 7^th to 9^th.

DECA is an organization of business students which hosts competitions at regional, provincial, and international levels. DECA also hosts leadership conferences to help students hone their business-related skills and boost their confidence.

“There’s five clusters in DECA: finance, hospitality and tourism, business administration, marketing, and entrepreneurship,” says Kelly Zhou, a Grade 12 student at Sinclair SS.

Zhou and Heather Wang, also a Grade 12 student, are the co-presidents of DECA at Sinclair SS and have both been a part of the team since Grade 10. Zhou and Wang are both moving on to the provincial competition and are training their DECA teammates who qualified as well. “DECA is split into two parts,” explains Wang. “There’s an exam portion and a case study portion. On Tuesdays we study for exams, and on Thursdays we help them with case studies.”

Impactful Networking

The Sinclair SS DECA team also planned and ran the entire Nor-Eastern and Private School regional competition, which has been hosted by Sinclair SS for the past six years.

Approximately 800 students competing in the regional competition qualified for the upcoming provincials. Of those 800, about 250 are Durham District School Board students.

Kristie Lee is the Business Department Head and DECA Advisor at Sinclair SS. Lee explains how impactful competing in DECA events and attending conferences is for students, “The overall experience of the connections they make is so important. Right now, Heather and Kelly are planning mock provincials with the DECA team at J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate.”

Wang concurs, “The conferences give us a lot of opportunities to network because it’s not just our school, it’s everyone in Ontario [at provincials]. We get to meet a lot of people our age, but also a lot of professionals that can help us.”