How to Talk to Your Principal About Going to DECA Provincials

Why the DECA Experience is Integral to the School Community

• DECA awards and participation leads to university acceptances. Here is the track record of our DECA chapter for getting people into university: ________.
• Every year, our school does extremely well at Provincials. Last year, our results were ____. This year, at Regionals, our results were _____. This is a big source of school pride for many students. It’s indescribable how excited kids get about being a part of our school when we become a DECA team.
• DECA’s competition integrates into the curriculum. It teaches presentation skills and confidence for every subject, as well as business theory for all our business courses. Also, if we take away DECA, many of those doing the Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) may not be able to complete their additional certification, which they have worked hard for.
• This experience is so incredible rewarding for the students. This is not an organization just at our school level, but at the Provincial level and the International level. Networking with corporate sponsors and the 185,000 members from across the world is something you cannot take away from students.
• We have already put so much time and money into this. We spend _____ hours every week doing training. Our results from Regionals set a school record: _______. $35 per person for Regionals. It’d be a shame if we couldn’t go to Provincials
• DECA is one of the only clubs/teams that can still potentially run. There are no other clubs that can run without teacher supervision. We can. This represents a huge amount of hope and potential for a little part of the student experience to be saved.

Legal Formalities

• This will not be an official school field trip. Students will be missing school and the absence will be validated by parents. You are essentially running as a community group (e.g. a baseball team or rock band), which schools have no control over.
• You do not need written or signed permission. You need the Principal to tell your advisor that he/she is OK with you attending Provincials. Olga Plagianakos will then call your advisor to confirm his approval.
• Essentially, DECA will be running as a “community group” this year and will not be associated with schools in the same way.
• 4000+ people are already registered for Provincials. There is so much precedent. Cite some local schools that you know are going to Provincials.

Cherries on Top

• Be completely transparent and emphasize the fact that you are being completely transparent
• If you or any of the administrators come with us as our supervisor, we will pay for all of your accommodations and meals and when our members qualify for Internationals, you will be coming down to California with us for free again.

Build rapport

• What do you care about?
• What are your concerns?
• We know this time has been harder on you than anybody else, and we hate to add more to the fire, but we really care about this
• Let your principal know that he/she is in charge and you are asking for their approval.

Questions

What if something bad happens and parents blame the school?

• Same issue every year; something bad could always happen; risk you take to give kids the experience

I don’t trust any old adult supervisors.

• We want to be completely transparent; we’ll have you approve every supervisor that we get. If you don’t approve, we don’t go. And we’d love to even have you come down with us; you’ll be able to witness our school win on the Provincial stage and we’d love to have you come down to California with us as well. Of course, all expenses for you will be paid.

I can’t have that many people skipping school

• Yes they are missing class but we’ll have their absence validated by parents. And of course, for curriculum concerns, this is the same thing that happens every year and for the reason that we believe they will learn more from these two days than from 2 days at school. DECA integrates into business education and it helps with every class; presentation skills etc.
• If the funding that is being lost is a concern, we can collect more money from members to re-imburse you. And you’ll see that members will pay that money because they care about this experience so much. Also, we are able to get corporate sponsors and donations.

Parents don’t want their kids to be skipping school with a random supervisor

• We know that you know more about parents than anybody, but I think in this situation as in all situations, parents want the best for their kids. Every day they send their kids to school, they send them to school with teachers they’ve never met. That’s because they want their kids to learn. In this case, they want their kids to make it to university, get a great job, and have a great high school experience.