Disclaimer: While writing some pieces do bring me genuine joy like the piece on the wonderful-ness our Camden students and how my wife made me a better educator, and others bring about a sense of catharsis like the pieces pertaining to my deep disdain for the education reform establishment (here, here, and here) and the piece about teachers who vote for Donald Trump, this piece does neither. Actually, this authoring this piece brought with it a sense of conflict, grieving, and sorrow – for multiple reasons. Firstly, as Black man, I have deep reservations about publicly critiquing a Black woman. Black women, uniquely, deal with so much day-to-day, and have done so historically in America, that the optics usually looks especially bad when it is a Black man doing the critiquing. Some Black people will see this essay as nothing more than a Black man attacking a Black woman; tearing her down. Appearance matters and perception always impacts reception. And so, I am aware that this likely sentiment is out there, and I respect it, and sincerely hope people recognize stating truth is not an attack – even if the truth is unflattering.
Next, I’m writing this with a sense of lament in that I’m frequently reminded how great our schools could be with the right leadership who truly believed in them. A leader that cared enough to want to see them succeed, that cared enough to protect them, that cared enough to grow them, that cared enough to act – as opposed to one that cares right up to the point where action is required. Truthfully, our Camden public schools, like all schools, can be better. (Notice I stated: all schools, can be better.) But our Camden schools are beautiful spaces with beautiful students attending them, and an overwhelmingly dedicated staff who want to see their students succeed. What has been missing: District leadership that believes that enough to defend, protect, promote, and cultivate our beautiful schools. Alas, I’m in a state of grieving because I recognize where our District is, knowing what could have, and what should have been. Invariably, some folks will say, “These issues should have been handled privately. One on one.” To that, I’d proactively respond: please know that I’ve tried repeatedly over years to express what follows to our District’s superintendent – to little or no avail. So here we are. So let’s get on with it…
Given that this country dodged a bullet as these next two months of the lame-duck Trump Presidency plods along, America can celebrate the eventual return to the chaotic normalcy that existed prior to the reign of the Orange Demon. With little doubt, following January 20th, 2021, most of us will still be dealing with the consequences of Trump’s incoherent COVID response along with teh litany of issues that preceded him: gross income inequality, runaway climate change, a shortage of jobs paying living wages; massive inequities in healthcare, wealth, homeownership, neighborhood development, and in the administration of justice. Yes, that American normal that we all knew, awaits us still.
For 73,000 Camden residents, our normal was restored in much faster. As Trump’s bid for re-election went down in flames on November 3rd, our residents’ opportunity to gain a greater, truer representation on our Board of Education by electing three candidates that cared specifically about public education and protecting our public schools, lost to a slate of politically-connected candidates funded, in large measure, by pro-charter advocates like Reed Hastings’ City Fund. Unfortunately, that’s normal here in Camden. Big money + allegiance with the local political apparatus usually yields electoral success for those willing to prioritize associations with, and proximity to, Power over the best interest of the Camden commoner.
What has also become normal, is for our school District leaders to float plans to shutter neighborhood public schools; always against the wishes and best interests of students, parents, neighborhoods, and educators. And, in keeping with what normal has been in Camden since Governor Christie took over our district and installed a grossly-underqualified Paymon Rouhanifard as superintendent in 2013, our current superintendent is following that example by floating the idea of closing three or four neighborhood public schools at the conclusion of this academic school year. And what has also become normal, is the fight ratcheting up between our educators, communities, and students in defense of our schools, and District leadership who, for nearly a decade, has been far too willing to tacitly allow our District to erode – if not actively aid in it.
What is factual, is that the Urban Hope Act of 2012 (UHA) was a law that facilitated the massive giveaway of urban public schools to corporate nonprofit charter management organizations. The law was intended to target school districts in New Jersey’s mostly low-income and minority populated areas of Trenton, Jersey City, possibly Newark, and Camden. The law stated that adoption of the UHA and the “renaissance schools” (takeover schools) they created, had to be approved by the local boards of education. Trenton did not move on it. Trenton had, and still has, a publicly elected school board. There are no renaissance schools in Trenton. Jersey City did not move on it. Jersey City had, and still has, a publicly elected school board. There are no renaissance schools in Jersey City. Newark did not move on it. Newark had, and still has, a publicly elected school board. There are no renaissance schools in Newark. Camden, however, did vote for renaissance schools. Camden’s school board consisted entirely of mayoral appointees. Renaissance schools are now all over the city and our District schools have been losing students and accumulated budgetary losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars since 2015. As has been mentioned and written about repeatedly, the bulk of such losses of students and funding was facilitated through our own District leaders closing our schools, and giving them away to CMO operators along with our students who already attended schools in those buildings. Worsening District financial troubles, the District’s transportation budget has exploded due to NJ laws mandating that students attending schools further than 1.5mi for K-8 students, and 2.0mi for high school students, must have transportation provided. So, while little to no transportation is provided for Camden’s own public-school students, our District is spending millions more each year on renaissance and charter school transportation. The reality and politics involved in the creation and maintaining of renaissance schools is much starker, and quite disgusting, but in the interest of brevity, my focuse here is on these past few years of announced school closures under the current superintendent because the public must know the truth.
During the Spring of 2019, the current superintendent unveiled a plan calling for the closure of two District public schools: Veterans Memorial Family School (VMFS), and RT Cream Family School. She had envisioned for VMFS to be closed outright, and for RT Cream to be repurposed to be an entirely PreK facility. Those plans, in a word, were flatly stupid. I remember asking her: “Who came up with this plan? It makes no sense. I mean, I know you went to good colleges, Lehigh and Columbia…I know you’re smart. I certainly know you’re smarter than this plan you’re unveiling…so, whose idea was this?” She replied, “My team came up with this.” Her “team”, a generic term I’d grown accustomed to hearing over the years, what I was sure of, consisted of folks whose backgrounds overwhelmingly derived from the charter-universe, with few if any pro-public education advocates to speak of. (One specifically, her now-Chief of Staff, had been telling me about the need to close schools, literally, every year I’ve been in office.) To Camden school district leadership, closing schools was the go-to answer to every problem. Budget issues? Close schools. Old buildings needing maintenance? Close schools. A school operating below capacity? Close schools. Close schools, close schools, close schools. What was always missing from any plan to close schools, was an alternative plan to course-correct. No plan to grow enrollment, no plan to make repairs to buildings, no plan to spend less on pricey contracts with tech-companies, curriculum providers, or no-bid services providers like Brown and Connery, Remington and Vernick, etc. As a reflexive solution, closing District schools, seemingly, was the answer to all matters confounding District leadership.
What made the plan to close VMFS and RT Cream so breath-takingly stupid was that the evolution of their respective neighborhoods did not justify either action, nor was there an analysis done by the District pertaining to where the students of these closed schools would attend school following their respective closures, how much money our District could lose if students decided to attend a non-District school as a result of their school being closed, or at what point the potential loss of students actually ended up costing the District money, instead of saving, by closing these schools. (No analysis was done, or at least none was ever presented after being asked these questions.)
RT Cream in Centerville, experienced a sharp decline in student enrollment during the mid-2010s following the demolition of Branch Village, a sprawling public housing complex one block away the school…but was being rebuilt and coming back in full in 2020. The neighborhood that was destroyed and sat uninhabited for years, predictably, initiated the student enrollment at the nearest public school to plummet but was coming back in less than one year. The homes were already near completion, and residents were beginning to fill up the new residencies. At a time when a neighborhood of an expected 2000 Camden residents were slated to return, our superintendent sought to have RT Cream, the nearest public school, transition from a PreK-8 school to an all PreK? From a neighborhood development perspective, that didn’t make sense, and it made even less sense when considering RT Cream was constructed in 1991 and was one of the District’s newer school buildings. However, when one factors that KIPP Cooper Norcross Sumner school, a renaissance school which sat at opposite end of the new Branch Village neighborhood was slated to open in Fall 2020 as a K-8 school, dots begin to connect. (Former superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard closed that very same Sumner Elementary School in 2017 due to “low enrollment”, “poor building conditions” and “low test scores” … and later leased the very same building to KIPP Cooper Norcross for $1.) If the idea is that District leaders ought to protect its schools, and its enrollment, making RT Cream an all PreK facility would do neither, but would hasten the loss of Camden public school students and deepen budgetary losses – which is why that plan seemed so…dumb. The superintendent, like her predecessor, seemed to be actively working to ensure KIPP Cooper Norcross Sumner renaissance had unfettered access to K-8 students in Centerville that, presumably, would have gone to RT Cream if it were to stay operating as normal. The renaissance schools would gain, our District would lose. Whose plan was this?
On the other side of the city, the announced closure of VMFS in the Cramer Hill section, similarly, made little sense. VMFS was the largest family school in that section of the city and was the only public school in the area. As a likely consequence, closing that school, all but assured the loss of nearly 500 public school students and the funding that accompanied them. Closing VMFS, for fiscal reasons, made no sense. Again, no analysis was produced by the District pertaining to where VMFS students would attend school following its closure, nor how much money our District could lose if those students decided to attend a non-District school as a result of their school being closed, or at what point the potential loss of VMFS students actually ended up costing the District money. Unlike with RT Cream, the District referenced the extent of the repairs needed for the building, which to be sure, at 84 years old, the school could use modernizing; but the building was open, operating, and deemed safe and structurally sound. Why, out-of-the-blue, was VMFS, of all schools being floated for closure?
What most folks likely did not have know, was that the renaissance school Mastery Cramer Hill which sits at the corner of River Rd. and East State Street, will soon likely undergo a similar enrollment loss that RT Cream experienced in Centerville when nearby Ablett Village is slated for demolition this year. Ablett Village, a public housing complex much like Branch Village in Centerville, sits directly across from Mastery Cramer Hill, and a huge swath of Mastery’s enrollment comes from Ablett Village and Centennial Village. When Ablett Village is dismantled (and possibly Centennial Village just down the road), if the past prolouge, Mastery Cramer Hill will experience huge dips in their enrollment. If VMFS were to close, it would leave Cramer Hill parents little choice aside from enrolling their students in Mastery Cramer Hill, and at the same time, the potential gain in students from the closure of VMFS would make up for whatever enrollment losses Mastery Cramer Hill incurs through the loss of Ablett Village. This makes sense, only if the District is actively working to reduce its enrollment and shrink its budget.
Following the announcement of VMFS’s pending closure, the community, educators, and students rose up. Demonstrations ensued. Students walked out. Staff and community showed up to rally at Board meetings and the NJEA joined the fight to save VMFS. And while local politicos and leaders of a Camden-based choice advocacy group cheered the superintendent’s announcement of closing these two institutions, the then-Commissioner Dr. Lamont Repollet was far less than impressed. At a meeting later that Spring in the Department of Education, when listening to the superintendent explain her rational for school closure, myself armed with photos of the returning Branch Village and maps of the two neighborhoods explain why closing RT Cream and VMFS was such a terrible idea, and NJEA President Marie Blistan give effusive support for protection of both schools, Dr. Repollet, a true advocate for public education, responds essentially stating: I don’t like that plan. If you (superintendent) make Cream an all PreK, that’s gonna force kids to that KIPP school. If I were a parent there, would not have my kids walk from there (Branch Village) all the way to HB Wilson if another newer school is sitting right there. Here’s what we’re gonna do, why not make Cream a PreK this year, and add a grade each year like the charters do so that it grows along with the returning community. As for VMFS: “Whatever you need, you got it.” And with the Commissioner’s decree, VMFS and RT Cream remained opened and operating. And, not coincidentally, the plans for KIPP Cooper Norcross Sumner school were altered from opening as a K-8 school in 2020, to opening as a high school.
Camden Enrollment Addendum: To the public, the rationale supporting school closure due to fiscal constraints and low student enrollment seems to make sense, intuitively – that is unless the public knew how the hamstringing of District dollars and enrollment were sustained by those responsible for safeguarding both. The public may not know that the community and our Camden Education Association has complained that the third party enrollment entity, Camden Enrollment who is financially supported by pro-charter funders, has been manipulating District enrollment by guiding parents into renaissance schools for years. Camden Enrollment was so brazenly pro-renaissance schools, that even Camden’s charter schools that once participated, withdrew from it altogether. The District knew that Camden Enrollment has been reporting to parents that certain District public schools “did not have available seats” which prevented parents from enrolling their children in those schools despite principals of those same schools vehemently stating the opposite. The District knew Camden Enrollment consistently ranked its own public schools worse than any non-public school in the area likely turning off any interested parent who valued their input, from enrolling their student. Despite countless meetings and concerns raised about how Camden Enrollment’s intervention in the enrollment process consistently hurt District enrollment, District leadership did nothing to stop it. Further, Camden educators and parents routinely asked District leaders to come up with a plan to promote our schools to potentially grow our enrollment, and to date, most have seen no such plan operationalized to attract students to District schools to reverse the downward trend in our enrollment. To be sure, the dwindling of Camden public school enrollment is not an organic occurrence, but one set in motion by UHA in 2012, and allowed to worsen by successive district leaders.
The above was background information for the public to better understand what happened in April of 2020, to provide context for the fight we’re about to have to protect Cooper’s Poynt in North Camden, US Wiggins in Downtown, and Harry C. Sharp in Cramer Hill. I know it’s a lot, but the truth must be told, and the public must know…
