The Bird Cage has been recognized as an Outstanding School-based Enterprise. South Forsyth High School was named among 391 schools who received the Gold Level Certification. The school-based enterprise (The Bird Cage) has been operational for two years and has been commended for this certification. The Bird Cage provides goods to students and teachers throughout the school day. The store is managed and operated by students who are taking the Marketing and Entrepreneurship class. The DECA School-based Enterprise Certification Program was created in order to be recognized for outstanding achievement among school-based enterprises. This is to hopefully motivate SBEs to strive and grow their programs. There are three levels at which you can be awarded: bronze, silver, and gold. To be considered for this certification, SBEs must submit extensive documentation to demonstrate their devotion to marketing and retail standards. The committee then evaluates the submission to determine the level of certification which has been earned.

The student who worked on accomplishing this certification was senior Katelyn Housler with the assistance of adviser, Mrs. Kimberly Christoffersen. Katelyn is the store manager and has held this position for the past two years. Katelyn began working on re-certifying the store at the beginning of the year and persevered through the entire first semester to get the school to where it is today. Katelyn worked very hard to achieve this certification with the help of others as she states, “It wasn’t too difficult because I had a lot of people helping me to change different things and all of our employees were really receptive to everything. The other two managers, Grace Green and Shivani Babu, were always willing to help if I needed something.” She added, “When working towards certification, I worked very closely with my teacher and adviser, Mrs. Christoffersen, who was amazing in guiding me through the process and giving me critiques. I couldn’t have done it without her.” Because of her hard work and assistance from Mrs. Christofferson, Katelyn was able to maintain their gold-level certification that they achieved for the first time last year. To accomplish this certification, Katelyn had to write a 25 page manual. While working tirelessly on this, she also competed in DECA. “I also had the opportunity to compete in DECA on behalf of The Bird Cage in the School Based Enterprise category (won 1st at state).” Katelyn Housler and all her hard work has greatly benefited South and it is an achievement that the school will continue to work towards maintaining.