In December, 100 of the 138 members of Coppell High School’s DECA chapter advanced from its virtual district competition to state, which will take place between February 8-16. In the onslaught of COVID-19, the Distributive Education Clubs of America was forced to move all competitions to the virtual-environment. 

DECA goes with the business and marketing endorsement at CHS, it is an association of marketing students which compete in district, state and international competitions. 

“It’s great for the kids to have something competitive academically that isn’t GPA based,” CHS DECA adviser Richard Chamberlain said. “It’s also very real world based in terms of scenarios, time and having to perform in front of a judge. It’s really exciting to see their growth [in soft skills], because of having to talk and be nervous in front of adults while having a lot riding on the line.”

Students were either given a 100 question test and had to create a video based on a given role-play scenario or they had to write a 10-20 page research paper and create a video presentation to further explain their topic. Videos were pre-recorded via Zoom and uploaded as a YouTube video to be judged as opposed to previous years, where presentations were done in-person.

“[With the online competition] you lost a lot of the personable aspect,” CHS sophomore Sahith Mocharla said. “[Previously], you had to do a lot more professional gestures. That would be like shaking peoples hands, saying ‘hi, how are you’ and pulling each other’s chairs out [when sitting down]. You don’t get to do a lot of the formal things you would do in a business setting, it’s a lot more informal.”

As the CHS DECA chapter prepares for its upcoming state competition, Chamberlain hopes to have at least 10 students advance to the International Career Development Conference. Coppell’s current record of students advancing to ICDC in a single year is 26.

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