The DECA Club has started to prepare for the Northern Region Blue and Gold Conference at Ramapo College on Jan. 6th.

The Glen Rock chapter of DECA was started two years.  Prior to that, the school participated in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA).

“Glen Rock had a DECA club many years ago and for a couple of years in between we had the FBLA, which I did my first year but we didn’t do too much in that and then we switched to DECA two years ago,” Mr. Frank Manziano, the DECA adviser, said.

Manziano has been involved with DECA since its renewal.

“I knew I wanted to run some sort of a business club here at the school and actually the idea to start the DECA club to revive it I guess if you will came from a student and his parent, Justin McCollum who is actually the president of DECA right now,” Manziano said. “They said why don’t we look at DECA instead of FBLA and we took a look at the two and decided to switch over to it because it has slightly more of a marketing focus and a business administration focus.”

As with any adviser, the main job is to ensure that every student involved in the club is safe and comfortable. In addition to that, Manziano ensures that each student has the resources needed to perform to the best of their ability.

“I give them old tests, some content.  We’re going to do some role-playing practice.   They pick up a lot in class,” he explained. “The marketing students are doing a lot of role playing and also in the economics classes that we teach, they do similar sorts of things.”

“We gave members a bunch of the possible questions they could be asked on the written exam so far,” Justin McCollum, president of DECA, said.  “Once that’s over, then we’ll start to prepare students for the role play events at Ramapo.”

The upcoming competition at Ramapo College is one of the two main competitions that the team will compete in.

“There has got to be at least fifty schools there from the North Jersey region so literally thousands of high school kids running around campus.  The school is actually closed that day so we sort of take over the campus and it’s a lot of fun,” McCollum said. “A lot of people know each other through networking and stuff but the competition itself is pretty rigorous.”

At the culmination of the regional competition, the top five percent get selected to move on to the states, which will be held at the end of February.

“My favorite aspect is how you only have to be as involved as you want. If you want to come every week and win competitions you can. If you just want to go along for the ride you can as well,” McCollum said.

This year, Glen Rock’s chapter has about 50 to 60 students attending the competition in January, which is a significant increase from the previous two years. The majority of students are juniors and seniors, however it is not limited to those grade levels.

“Mr. Manziano gives packets and worksheets to learn from and he also coached us on the aspects of finance,” Julian Bennett, one of the members, said. “He’s really helpful with all the students and wants everyone to succeed, so he puts a lot of effort into it.”

“It consists of interest, experience, and how much time they have,” Manziano said.