DECA: a competitive business club

The most asked question to any DECA member or advisor: "What exactly is DECA?"

DECA is a competitive business club that focuses on four career clusters: management, marketing, finance and hospitality.  The main competition consists of one or two role-plays which are business case studies.  Students have an allotted amount of time to read the case study, prepare a strategy and then they sit with a judge and role-play a business meeting on that topic.  Students compete in role-plays at the regional competition hoping to advanced to the state and international competitions.  Also factoring into their scores are exams that test on economic and business concepts.

Another area of competition are business plans.  These are 5-30 page written reports that include research and strategy plans.  These written event could range in topics from starting a new business to developing a marketing campaign for a real business.  The written events are presented at the State competition in March in hopes of advancing to the International competition in May.

The Glenbrook North DECA club also helps develop leadership and community service within our members.  The club currently runs a Market Day food business program for the community and also fundraises to help with local charities.

Over the years, students and alumni remark that DECA is a valuable experience.  It gives students real life experiences interacting with business professionals, interviewing and networking.  DECA also provides leadership, business and entrepreneurial skills that have made our alumni quite successful.

For more information on DECA, check out the following web links:

Main site: http://www.deca.org/

A listing and examples of high school competitive event categories: http://www.deca.org/competitions/highschool/

GBN's Marketing Class to partner with the SAP team

The Student Assistance Program (SAP) at Glenbrook North High School is invested in the prevention, intervention, and support in all areas of a student’s social-emotional development.  The SAP Team represents faculty members across the disciplines found within Glenbrook North High School.  So with my passion of social emotional learning and my teaching and real-world experience in marketing, I fit well on the SAP Team.

In the 2012-2013 school year we worked on developing parent workshops (Understanding Adolescents and the Impact of a Digital Footprint) along with supporting other initiatives for students such as the "Potty Mouth," a publication that displays in the restrooms and promotes healthy living and resources.

So in the Spring semester, I had my marketing class brainstorm a public relations campaign for bullying prevention. What amazed me was the ideas and themes that came out of this activity included ideas that fit with the social emotional goals we had on the SAP team.  My marketing students thought that there needed to be more opportunities to create connections between teachers and students and between their peers.  Marketing students also felt that videos or Youtube videos are a great communication tool to reach their millenium generation.  Finally, students felt that their needed to be more marketing on resources that Glenbrook North (GBN) already has but the students aren't aware enough.  I brought a huge brainstorming list back to the SAP and the faculty members all agreed that the SAP team needed to do more marketing.  However, with our limited time as teachers, we are only able to get so much done on our own.  We need to expand our resources for help with marketing and what a perfect fit with me, a marketing teacher, being on the SAP team.

Each semester I partner with a local business and invite them into my classroom as our "client." They share their marketing objectives and budget and then we bring them back in at the end of the semester to present recommended marketing strategies.  For the 2013-2014 year, I'm excited to announce that the GBN Marketing Class will partner with the SAP team to not only present strategies but to also execute the marketing initiatives within the school.  The marketing class will not only gain valuable experience but they will be helping their peers, the teachers and improving their school culture.

Look out for updates though out the school year on the marketing initiatives of the SAP team!  In the meantime, please refer to the Glenbrook North's Student Assistance Program page.

Management & Leadership Class at GBN

Management & Leadership is a fun, life skills class suitable for all types of students whether they are interested in going into business, interested in improving leadership skills or just want to be inspired to live a more fulfilling life!  This class focuses on three core areas.

A Leadership Impact Project that continued for two years
to donate guitars to Glenwood Elementary in Waukegan, IL 

Managing yourself: time management, being

proactive, and goal setting.

Management functions: planning, organizing,

directing and controlling.

Leadership: how to motivate and inspire.

Students will study the traits of an effective

leader and work in collaborative team projects

to gain hands-on experience investigating how

to be a leader in the community.

The Leadership Impact Projects have been a huge success over the last several semesters.  The project begins with the entire class brainstorming about ways they can have an impact on their community or society as leaders.  A list is created of potential realistic projects and students choose to be on a project team that inspires them the most.  In the Spring 2013 class, students helped local cancer patients, collected book donations for Glenwood Elementary (a school in a low income community), raised depression awareness, collected used sporting equipment for charity, and raised awareness about concussions.  A big emphasizes on this project is about the management functions mentioned above.  Before executing the project, students developed a plan and present it to the entire class to receive feedback for revision.  Check out posts from April 2013 on this blog to see the proposals for each of the projects from this year.  

The Leadership Impact Projects give students' a tremendous opportunity to apply the skills they learn in this course.  Skills and topics include: 

Students working together to lift their teacher over a wall.

• Communication Skills
• Problem Solving Skills
• Management Philosophies
• Group Dynamics & Team Building
• Emotional Intelligence
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

The other experiential learning opportunities in this class comes from team building activities and reflection.  Team building opportunities provide a valuable hands-on learning opportunity to solve projects and to collaborate with their peers.  Students then reflect introspectively and with each other to discuss how they think and feel as they create their own leadership style.

For more information about the course:

Contact Mindy Ingersoll at Glenbrook North High School in the Career and Life Skills Department.