After over 250 DECA students completed testing Dec. 3 or submitted 20-page papers Dec. 21, the business and finance competition club met for an awards ceremony Jan. 15.
DECA is a student organization focused on preparing student entrepreneurs in the areas of finance, marketing, hospitality and management.
Before the awards ceremony, a list of the top 26 students in each category for the district competition was released. The final 13 who qualified for states were announced on live stream Jan. 15.
As of Jan. 16, 129 students have qualified for the state competition, with that number likely to increase as students withdraw from certain events. Some students apply to both a paper competition along with a testing competition and must choose which category they would like to compete in states with, leaving more spots open to fill.
The Florida DECA Career Development Conference will take place March 5-8. DECA chapter president and senior Angelina Lin expressed excitement about both her final state competition and the chapter’s strong district performance.
“I feel great about how many people qualified for states because it shows how strong our chapter is and how well we do as a school,” she said. “I’m really excited and sad for my last states [competition] after being in DECA since freshman year.”
