Ridgewood High School Achieves Gold Level DECA Recognition

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Ridgewood High School’s school-based enterprise (SBE), The Maroon Mart, is set to be recognized during DECA’s International Career Development Conference after achieving Gold Level Certification for the 2021-2022 school year.

According to a press release from Ridgewood High School, SBEs are entrepreneurial operations that take place within a school setting. They provide goods and services to meet the needs of the market while providing students with hands on learning in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.

Ridgewood High School’s SBE has operated for 20 years. The Maroon Mart has been operating out of the high school since 2004, selling school merchandise, snacks and more.

“DECA’s School-based Enterprise Certification Program is a rigorous process designed to help DECA members demonstrate their classroom learning in a practical, learning laboratory, and then translate that into meaningful outcomes,” said Christopher Young, CAE, Chief Program Officer at DECA, Inc. “These DECA members are practicing important workplace readiness skills while preparing for college and careers.”

Ridgewood High School DECA members who contributed to the certification included Brian Auerbach, Snehanshn Chowdhury and Tate Cunningham along with DECA chapter advisors Tim Murtha, Karen Mendez and Paul Cronk.

DECA is a not-for-profit career and technical student organization with over 170,000 members in their High School Division. It provides recognition for outstanding achievement by SBE’s with three certification levels of bronze, silver or gold, with participating SBEs required to submit documentation that demonstrates the practice of marketing and retail standards. A review committee evaluates these documentations to determine the SBE’s level of certification.

For more information on DECA, visit www.deca.org/about.

You can check out The Maroon Mart by visiting www.rhsmaroonmart.com.