Episode 12: CTSO Sponsor - Chapter Prep for Competition

0:00 Welcome to 2024. Let's get this season started. So as Nigel in the infamous movie, The Devil Wears Prada said, All right, everyone, Gird your loins. And he said this in preparation for Miranda, the infamous Miranda walking into the building. While I'm saying it in reference to the DECA season CTSO season, walking into the building, it is January and it is time to get ready for competition, you've done all of your prep. Now it's time to get the show on the road. Alright, so in this episode, we're going to be talking about a DECA advisor prep guideline that I've put together for competition season. This encompasses all the things that I myself had to do in preparation for competition. And I just felt like I wanted to share this with the advisors out there. Some of you are old heads. Not only this, but we have a lot of new advisors out there who need this information to help organize their life. So let's get the show started. Welcome on into the room. In this go.

1:28 You're listening to Marketing EdVenture, the hub for business, fashion, marketing, and other CTE educators who integrate marketing into the learning experience. I'm your host, Jackie Walker. Each week, I'll cover marketing, education concepts, strategies, tips, trends, frameworks, and other information to equip you to connect your classroom to digital natives while cultivating an engaged learning environment. So come on into the room, where your favorite beverage snacks, and even your cell phone are all welcome.

2:08 All right, so I want to lay out for you a framework for getting prepared for competition. I call this my DECA Advisor Prep for Competition framework. Now, of course, if you are an advisor or sponsor for another CTSO, you can use this same framework, I'm going to provide to you this free document that has this outlined framework and it is editable, so you will be able to go in and make changes to fit your particular CTSO. Or even if you're a DECA advisor, you can still go ahead and make adjustments according to your district in your state. Okay, so this particular framework that I am introducing has four silos. And so when I say silos, it's because they're vertical on this chart that I have. The first silo is the chapter. So these are things that are done within the chapter for just specifically organizing in and doing the paperwork. Now the next three silos are related to competition. So the first, the second silo is district or provincial, for DECA, and it may be called something else for you and your CSM. The next level is state. And then the next level is national, for DECA, that's ICDC, the international career development conference. All right, so now those are my silos within this chart. And of course, we have a silo, that's the required action, that's the very first silo, okay. Now, in addition to the silos, I have two sections that are horizontal, one is administrative and the other is signatures required. So let's get into the administrative section of this outline. So, within the administrative section, I have two areas that I call one is called get started and the other is called the approval process. Now, as you look at this framework, you will see that moving horizontally across the framework, in the Get Started section, or for all my sections, actually, you will see their exes checked or marked in each section for what person is needed to initiate the work or approve the work or sign a document in each one of these actions that are listed.

4:52 So let me just get started. And the first section is called Get Started. So that section is basically just the initiation of the process for the year for the chapter. So the first thing I have listed is chapter registration. For DECA chapter registration is generally due at the end of October. So we want to initiate getting our students signed up for DECA, and then submitting the paperwork to get that approved for payment so they can get our deeds paid. And so if you're looking at the silos, this falls within the chapter silo, and the two responsible parties to involved in this process, or is the teacher in administration, and I didn't state that, under each silo, there are four different four or five, depending on which silo it is. In the chapter silo, there's only four. And there are four people who are listed under that silo. And I have them just with the letter T for teacher s for student P for parent, a for admin, and then in the competition levels, the district, state and national, I have Additionally, a C for chaperone. Alright, so now that I've outlined that, let's get back over here and talk about the chapter registration. So there's an x under teacher in administration, because the teacher has to submit the documentation for registration, and then submit documentation to the admin, which was our business office for approval for payment of those registration fees. Okay, so those are two parties involved in the chapter registration. Next, I have listed the competition registration. Now, this is beyond chapter, this goes into our district, state and international levels. And we're just going to focus on the district level right now, because that is the first competition that generally is due for payment in December, and the registration is due the payment is due for competition in December. So we want to go ahead and initiate that pretty quickly in the semester, or, you know, be ready to initiate it pretty quickly in the semester. So when December comes around, we can go ahead and submit our paperwork, and then submit it to our administration, our business office for that to be covered.

7:14 All right. And then the next thing for Getting Started is the fundraiser because most of us have to raise funds for competition. Now I know there are some schools and districts that have money, buckets of money sitting there waiting to pay for all these wonderful activities that their students are doing. But many schools have to raise money for their students to compete in competitions. So fundraising is something that's initiated by the teacher and involves administration approval, so those two boxes have an X on him. So that is something that we want to get started pretty quickly at the beginning of the school year, so that we can have those funds ready to pay our dues and our registration for competition. So this completes the area, that's called Get Started.

8:08 Alright, so this next section of the administrative area is about the approval process. And in this section, I have three different approvals that we had to go through in Dallas ISD. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be the same for other districts and states, more than likely. So the first one was the field trip approval. Second is the sponsor's financial approval. And then the third one is the Student Financial approval. Now, I don't want to go too far into these, but I will just quickly go over some of the forms that were needed for the field trip approval, and then over the areas that needed to be approved for, for the student in the sponsor finances. So for the field trip approval packet that we had to submit for district, it had several forms and several things that were needed. So in alphabetical order, I'll just list them really quickly. So we have to chaperone form which everybody who wasn't adults who was overseeing the field trip had to fill out one including myself, this the teacher, and so you had the chaperone form, you have to chaperone overnight schedule, which was something that we had to create to show the district who was going to be on duty throughout the night, to make sure that the students were safe and taken care of. And then we had the coverage document with the schedule. So that's just pulling out the conference schedule from the booklet that every conference has. That shows the outline of the schedule from the time we hit registration, and the events into the time we have our award ceremony. So that's something we included with our field trip approval forms. The next would be a field trip justification.

10:00 This was just really writing out the purpose of the trip, what it was related to, educationally wise, put the TEKS in there and all the information to show the need for the trip. And then the next thing listed is the field trip permission form. That's the student field trips form, take it home to the parents say, hey, students participate, I get my student permission to participate in this field trip on this date, etc, the parent signs it, the student signs it.

10:29 The next thing is the field trip proposal form. This was the biggest form for us, because this is the form that outlines everything about the field trip, where it was the hospitals nearby, the sponsors that would be there, how many students what grade level what it was connected to, and as far as education is concerned, the TEKS, the funding, the the transportation, all of that, and this is the one that had all of the signatures on it, because in addition to our signature as the sponsor, we had to have our principal signature. And then if we were moving up, if we were going out of town or staying overnight, we had to have the executive director and the assistant superintendent signature. So this was the big form for our district, I don't know, I'm pretty sure everybody's your district has some type of form, that is a field trip form that has to be filled out. And this was the field trip proposal form for Dallas ISD.

11:33 And then depending on what year it was, what school year was, and we may have to submit a lesson plan within and we may not have to. So I have this listed because that is something that may be required by many districts to submit a lesson plan as to, you know, to cover all the information about the field trip and how it's connected to the learning. All right. And then there's the student list that includes the student name, student ID name, I mean, student ID number, and the Guardian name and number. And then the transportation form indicating the type of transportation needed, or even the request form for transportation and all of that. And then there's the trip itinerary form. And this is different from the schedule, because this talks about alright outlines, from the moment we depart from the school to the moment we return to the school, every hour is accounted for. And so this is something that we had to submit with our field trip packet. So that covers the field trip approval process. Now for the sponsor, financial approval, we generally had to submit a couple of things. But we wanted, we had to submit it to request funding for our registration, our lodging, our meals, and then we had to submit documents that showed you know, the conference, again, the conference schedule, the DECA invoice. And then we also had a different document that teachers had to submit for either reimbursement, reimbursement or prepayment of our expenses. So this is all within the sponsor's financial approval, which is his own process. And then we had our Student Financial approval, and this is the approval for funding the student expenses and trip. So the spaces that we're talking about are the Decker registration, the lodging, the meals, and the transportation. And generally the dock is documents that were needed, where the DECA invoice those student lives with The Guardian information, and any other things that they wanted us to submit.

13:38 Along with that, depending on the year again, because every year, things change. So with any of these processes, if you're looking at the chart, you're going to see that the parties involved are the teacher and the admin for every level, district, state, international. So at every level, we had to do this paperwork. So three times we are submitting the field trip process approval, the sponsor, financial approval and the Student Financial approval three times in a whole year for DECA competition. Okay, that concludes the approval process. The three major areas for approval were the field trip itself, the sponsor finances, and the student finances.

14:33 Now we're gonna move into the signature area. Now, these are the forms that were either I created for my chapter because I wanted to have accountability. It also includes forms that DECA requires, and then we have the forms that are required by our district. So let's talk about those chapter forms really quickly. I created these, again for accountability, because I wanted to make sure that my students were committed, and that their parents were committed to making the students committed.

15:15 Alright, so the first form that I have my students sign is the student CTSO Letter of Agreement, this is their agreement to participate in the chapter, okay. And I have that, that form filled out and by their parents and by them, so this is just their signature of agreement. Now, as we get into the school year, and we're making determinations as to what event the students are going to participate in, once they make a selection on an event, I have the student sign a student event agreement. This is stating that yes, I agree that I'm going to participate in apparel and accessories or I'm going to participate in a Community Giving project, you know, so that we can just have that accountability, and a sign off on that.

16:21 Now, in addition to that, if the student was in a partnership, I would have them sign a student partner agreement, so that all parties involved are stating that they're going to contribute to this project. And they're going to equally participate, provide information, research, all of that. So we have everybody's signature. So those are the three forms that I created for accountability within my chapter.

17:02 Now, the other forms, these are going to be forms that are required by our district, and by DECA. So the first form, just going in alphabetical order, was the chaperone form. That's a district required form that had to be filled out for every person adult who was chaperoning our trip. There was a requirement for there to be one chaperone per 10 students. And then there also had to be a male chaperone if you were having male students. And this was on an overnight out of town trip. And of course, a female chaperone had to be available for any females, if you were a male teacher, and you had female students that were participating. You have to have a female teacher sign off on the chaperone form to say that okay, we are going to help chaperone an overnight out of town trip with this male teacher. Now, because I taught fashion marketing 99% of my students were female, I only had one year of competition where I took a male to state. And thankfully, there was another teacher in our district who was male, and to stay in the same hotel that I was staying in, and I had him fill out our chaperone form. All right, so those that chaperone form is, like I said, district level, the competition letter of responsibility.

18:12 Now, this was a form that I created, that outlined the competition itself as to whether it's District State International, where we were going and outlined all the expenses related to this trip. Now, in years past, my students have been responsible for paying for their own expenses, you know, if our fundraising didn't meet the 100% of the costs, so the students would have a cost that they were responsible for. And then in recent years, our district has taken on some of the responsibility of the payment of student expenses. But however, regardless, there was this letter that outlined the expenses. The student had to take this home to their parents, so their parents would know what the cost of participation is, and the student and the parent would sign this form. It also stated that if the student didn't show up for competition that the parents in the student were responsible for repaying that cost if that money came out of the fundraising fund, or the district's funds. Okay, so the parent and students signatures required on this one, this was signed for each level of competition.

19.28 All right. And then we had a parent meeting document that had to be signed for out of state overnight competition. And we had to have a meeting. And we have to go over a lot of things regarding competition, being out of state, staying overnight requirements, expectations, misconduct, in the actions for all of those things and then the parent has to sign off on it that's at the state and the international level.

20:00 All right, and then the next item is the parent permission for conference competition. Now this is a DECA form that's included with the DECA package that we get for every level of competition. And the parent has to sign off on that form at each level of competition.

20:18 Alright, so the next thing is the student field trip permission form, which is required as a part of the field trip approval process. This form is required by our district to be signed by the parent and the student, giving approval for the student to participate in competition. And of course, that had to be signed off at every level state, district state, international.

20:41 And then the two things that I created were forms that needed to be signed by the students’, teachers, because this gave accountability to the teacher to not count the student absent, and also for the student to be accountable to the work that they're missing from the teacher's class. One of them, the first one is the testing letter. Because we changed from having testing on site at the event, to having testing in the school, at the students school, and proctored by another teacher, or adult. So we did that during the time rather than before after school. And so, the student would miss one class, because it's a 90 minute test, and we were block scheduled. And so they would take that letter to their teacher for the class that they're missing. So the teacher knows where the student was number one, and would agree to allow them to make up the work that they were missing for class. And the student would then come back, provide the letter to me. And we would have that as documentation. So if in the event, the student, the teacher, like, Oops, I forgot the student was testing and kept them absent, then we could have that corrected with the attendance office. And it was also just accountability for the student to say, okay, yeah, I let my teacher know, and I know what I'm missing. And I'm going to make up for that work. Same thing for when we went out of town on a trip.

22:10 I also created an attendance letter. And this would the same process, let the teacher know that the student is going to be missing this many days of class because they are participating in competition for their CTSO, and our district had an initiative where it wants every student participating participating in a CTSO, so I would also document that initiative, I would also document it the TEKS for our courses, that, you know, that states that the student participates in career conference, events and things of that nature. So outlined all of that, to show that we are, you know, meeting initiative and guidelines for our curriculum, and also allow the teacher to provide the student with the work that they were missing, or to make up the work. Once they came back from competition, it was accountability on the teachers' part. And again, accountability on the students are to know that there was work that there was missing, and to obtain that information from the teacher so that they can either one, do it prior to competition to do it while they're at competition in their free time, or to complete the work when they come back from competition. So that concludes all of the signature forms that are required for most districts, or states for students competing in their CTSO conferences.

23:49 I hope this information has been valuable for you. And I know you veteran teachers probably have this down pat, but it's a lot. And there were times when I would always say I needed an assistant. It's a lot to cover. And if you're a new teacher, it can be pretty overwhelming. So I hope that this form will give you some kind of guideline, a reference point for you to go back to to make sure that you have all things taken care of. But of course, you definitely have to follow your district and your state's guidelines for completing the paperwork that you need for competition in field trips. Again, you can get this framework for free. Just click on DECA advisor prep in the description or the show notes and you can have access to this. So I hope that you have a wonderful competition season this 2024 And if you're feeling overwhelmed, just step back and take a breather. Get some support from some of your peers who are also advisors or sponsors for the same organization. And yeah, happy competing. Now stay tuned for the next episode where I go into covering trip prep. So this is like covering information right immediately before your trip, during your trip, and return from your trip. So stay tuned for that in the next episode. Until then, have a wonderfully blessed day and go get it for competition.

25:37 Thanks for listening to Marketing EdVenture. Remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with someone you think will benefit from the information shared here today. If you have any questions, or want to connect with me, find me on Instagram and Marketing EdVenture. All links and resources discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes at marketing edventure.com