Blakelock's 2024 DECA Regionals Wrapped

Written by: Claire King

Edited by: Ava Puhlmann

Blakelock’s 2024-2025 DECA team kicked off their year with an incredible start. 

DECA is an international competition where students' business skills are evaluated in exciting and engaging events. The club also helps students cultivate important skills useful for post secondary and career success. The competition usually has two stages in which students are evaluated: a case study roleplay, and a written exam. The case study requires students to create and present a formal business presentation based on a given scenario, with only 10-30 minutes of preparation time. The exam is simply a formal 100 question multiple choice test. 

To determine which area of business their evaluations focus on, members choose to compete in one out of six career clusters. The clusters include business management and administration, marketing, finance, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and hospitality and tourism. Within these clusters, students must choose from a vast array of events. Events are specified themes that determine the content of case studies and exams. 

Blakelock’s DECA team participated in the first stage of the competition, regionals, on November 7th. After a month of training, competitors wrote their exams in the school library. Blakelock was assigned Area 6 Regionals, which removed the case study component in favour of the exam. Whether students advanced in the competition was based entirely on their performance in the multiple choice examination.

On November 22, the club met for an awards ceremony and celebration. All 95 of Blakelock’s wonderful DECA members received certificates of recognition for participating in the first stage of the competition. Exam honours were awarded to 43 of these students. The following members received certificates for demonstrating exceptional engagement: Lachlan Pryznyk, Jason Cai, Premleene Bakshi, Brooke Mackenzie, Emma Kellerman, Mackenzie Barnett, and Khadija Aleila. Lastly, after achieving an exceptional score of 93% on the exam, competitor Kieran Roy received an award for having the highest mark in the club.

The competition is not over yet. 21 amazing competitors achieved scores high enough to grant them spots in DECA’s second stage: provincials. On February 9th and 10th these members will represent Blakelock at the DECA provincials in downtown Toronto.

Blakelock’s DECA team has had a wonderful start to this year’s competition and are on track to continue succeeding in the upcoming second stage.