Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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62 | SEPTEMBER 2015 nshoremag.com worldwide, it is still a seldom- talked about program. Established just six years ago by Sarah Hickey, NAHS's DECA program has grown to include a diverse group of students at all lev- els of involvement. Some students are active in fundraising, hosting and attending member recruit- ment events, going to leadership conferences throughout the year, and completing community service projects, while others simply take a business class and go to the District Conference in January. Peter Mar- fione, one of the two DECA advisors and a NAHS business teacher, as well as Kochanski's varsity hockey coach, says, "We have students that we hardly see in the fall because of sports but then will be very involved in the winter, it is a good program because it fits the needs of each individual student." "As far as involvement goes, it varies due to the participation that you would like to have," says Kochanski, "Myself, I wanted to have a higher role in DECA, so I asked and got selected to be an ambassador for NAHS DECA and basically what I do is work on fundraisers and campaigns within the school for anything to grow the DECA name, as it is still a relatively unknown organization." And apparently his efforts have paid off. Marfione says that at 120 students, the NAHS DECA chapter is one of the largest in the state. According to Kochanski, there is no application process to gain admittance to the program; students just need to complete one Business and Marketing class before signing up with their teachers. The only requirement once they have joined DECA is attendance at the one-day District Conference, where they compete against the other schools in their district for a chance to be invited to the State Conference later in the year. In Massachusetts, the schools with DECA programs are split into seven districts. NAHS is in District 3 and includes Danvers, Georgetown, and Peabody high schools. This past year, District 3 had its conference at Merrimack College in Andover. The District Confer- ences are an all-day competition separated into subcategories, such as sports marketing, merchandising, or restaurant management. Each BY SARAH LEVINE A local high school program readies kids for college and beyond. Stacked Deck Unlike many of his classmates, when North Andover High School (NAHS) junior Brett Kochanski entered high school he didn't want to just join a club that would be fun for the four years he was there, he wanted something that could help him prepare for the future. So he joined DECA during his freshman year. DECA is a worldwide organiza- tion whose goal is to prepare future entrepreneurs and emerging lead- ers in the business world. Although it was established in 1946 and has 215,000 members in 3,500 schools CONTACT DECA 1600 Osgood Landing, Suite 3059 North Andover 978-794-1503 northandover publicschools.com photograph Sarah Jordan McCaffery (opposite page) Opposite, Brett Kochanski studies at North Andover High School. LIVE