With term one coming to a close, WA business club DECA prepares more and more for their district competition, which is being held this January at Umass Lowell.

Qualifiers for this event will then head to the state competition which is being held in Boston.

After the Boston competition, qualifying students will then finally go onto the national finals, which will be held in Anaheim, California on April 18th and is currently estimated to have an attendance of over eighteen-thousand students. 

DECA is currently preparing by getting their over 400 students ready for a future in business, as well as for this year’s set of competitions. DECA has now become one of the most popular clubs to join at WA, and has beaten last year’s attendance record of 412 students. Not only does DECA now have the record for student membership, but now it also has a record of thirty-six student qualifiers for the last competition and is expected to beat that again this year.

“Getting 400 plus students organized to sign up and pick an event is always the toughest part,” DECA adviser John Rogers said.

Rogers hopes that the amount of students currently enrolled in DECA will make the overall team stronger for this year’s set of competitions.

This year’s set of DECA leaders include seniors Angela Alibrandi, Abby Walsh, and Morgan Walter, as well two co-leaders Amanda Carry and Trisha Kagalavadi. Leaders’ responsibilities include training students after school, setting up fundraisers, and drumming up attendance for DECA events.

Leading students also use a mentor program in order to help any student who is struggling by providing a place where they can ask questions online and get help at a time that is convenient to him or her.

As there only a few months away, DECA students and staff are training vigorously for this year’s set of competitions and are hoping for an even better year than 2015, where many students placed in the top 10 at regionals and some even walked away with awards.

“We have a good group of kids this year, a lot of them have been there done that, so many of them are veterans,” Rogers said.