A District’s Wrong Turn

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing column called Camden Front and Center, analyzing the city’s politics, development, and power structures. It reflects the author’s examination and perspective on how decisions by political, business, and civic leaders impact the city’s Black and Latino residents.

The Camden City School District (CCSD) caused a ruckus in the community with its announcement that it intended to close three of its high schools, reducing the number from five to two. On the chopping block were Creative Arts High School, Big Picture Learning Academy, and the Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School. 

The plan was to convert each school into an academic pathway for students attending Camden High School, where the schools are currently housed. According to the newly appointed state superintendent, Alfonso Llano, called it “expand[ing] access”: school boundaries, he said, were limiting students’ schedules, and a unified campus model would open up courses and programs for everyone under the same roof.

However, this plan didn’t sit well with many students and alumni. 

Alumni took to social media, and students took to the streets in protest to display their displeasure with the decision, which many say lacked meaningful input from students and families. As a result, Llano changed course, saying, “There is no change to the model that is currently in place… No schools are closing… Each school maintains its identity and history.”

If students and parents were frustrated with an inability to take certain classes due to a lack of flexibility resulting from being enrolled in a different school, although housed in the same building, the district simply needs to treat Camden High like a University with multiple schools that allow students in those schools to take classes across the university. Because all students deserve to take whatever (elective) class they desire. Dissolving the specialized or magnet high schools was unnecessary.

… unless dissolving those schools was the point. 

A former colleague, an advocate for Camden’s schools, made a great point on social media about this situation. She said, “Follow the money.” Camden is operating under a $91 million deficit. A deficit requires budget cuts and significant reductions. Closing schools is a significant reduction that frees up funding. Closing three high schools means three fewer funding priorities for the district, a reallocation of resources, and a reduction in salaries.

The handwriting was on the wall for these schools once it was announced that they would each relocate to the newly constructed Camden High School building. Because what the takeover of CCSD has meant is the elimination of its schools. Prior to the takeover, during the 2012-2013 school year, CCSD had 26 schools with an enrollment of 12,608. As of the 2024-2025 school year (last year), CCSD has 16 schools with an enrollment of 5,871 students, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.

The architects of the takeover intentionally sold Camden’s families a bill of goods, valuing competition over community; that competition forces schools (like businesses) to offer the best quality services as they compete for students and funding. That may be a good approach for the free market, but not for schools. Whether in a Renaissance school or an independent charter school, students there, like those in CCSD, are testing below the state average, according to the most recent state data. 

So much for competition. 

But Creative Arts High School, Big Picture Learning Academy, and the Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School; these are magnet schools within the district. A magnet school isn’t born of the need for “competition,” but rather to provide students with opportunities to gain specialized skills and competencies. That was the spirit of the creation of these schools to begin with. Their creation predated the state takeover: Medical Arts in 1994, Creative Arts in 1999, and Big Picture Learning Academy in 2005.

The constituency of students and families in favor of dissolving these schools within Camden High School believes that merging the schools provides all students with the opportunity to get the skills. Before these magnet schools existed, that’s exactly what Camden High School did… and once these schools were installed, it should not have compromised the sciences, career training, and theater programs at Camden High School.

But these schools weren’t erected for the same reason magnet schools exist in the first place. In Camden, everything is political, as most people here are well aware. These days, especially when choosing whether to open a new school or close an old one, Camden is political. But the original intention of magnet schools was to attract white students (and their parents) to Black schools by offering specialized instruction and/or outcomes, in hopes of using the free market to encourage integration rather than relying on court orders.

Because in these United States, the genesis of most things, if not all things, begins with racism. 

The Brown v. Board of Education decision used the rationale that Black students were at an academic deficit because they didn’t attend school with white children. While that’s totally untrue, policymakers and policy implementers followed that logic, closing Black schools and firing Black teachers, forcing Blacks students to integrate on their terms. But that’s not integration. 

That’s assimilation. True integration is mutual. Assimilation is not.

Some white communities didn’t want assimilation, let alone integration. The courts stepped in to make them “integrate.” But Camden students are predominantly Black and Latino/a/e. No matter the focus or quality of the school, white parents aren’t sending their children to Camden City to get an education. 

But Camden students are receiving a subpar education: that’s the longtime narrative. That narrative has been around as long as I’ve been alive. That narrative lies behind the popularity of parochial schools, the creation of charter schools, and the state takeover of Camden schools. It’s also played a part in the increased popularity of magnet schools, which provide an intradistrict form of tracking rather than traditional tracking–whether or not that was the district’s intention.

Traditionally, schools track their students into higher- and lower-level academic programs. The history of tracking in schools is a racist one, where Black and Latino/a/e students are overrepresented in “lower” tracks, compared to white students. That affects how they view themselves and how teachers view them, which in turn affects how they’ll perform in the classroom. Intradistrict tracking occurs when specified schools attract students with specialized programming, ultimately keeping them in the district while simultaneously tracking them. 

A magnet school in an urban center, like a charter school, can attract and enroll higher-performing students. While Camden’s magnet school students don’t test any better than Camden High School students in mathematics, their test scores in language arts and literacy are comparable to those of city charter schools, which are higher than those of Camden High School. That can set the table for the unequal regard for students. According to some parents and educators, it has.

… and as an educator, who’s taught in Camden schools with “competing” programs, if not schools within schools, I can tell you that educators and even parents base the way they regard and treat students according to their academic “track.” I’ve heard it with my own ears and have seen it with my own eyes. It’s wrong and is rooted in racism. 

It’s racism because it assigns worth to one’s talent or potential while devaluing students who don’t “display” talent or potential. It’s also racism because it assigns worth to how students behave; a respectability politics of sorts, that the better-behaved students are in the magnet school versus the public school. 

This isn’t to say that Camden’s magnet schools are without a history, a culture, and value. These schools have these. So does Camden High School. Yet, this situation facilitated division among Camden’s students and families, who all want the same thing: access to a quality, fulfilling education for students. That should be the goal in any discussion about instructional decisions by the school district. 

… Not the political reasons of politicians and district officials …not the bias, prejudice, or racism of educators …not the emotions of students and families …and not the exploitation of any of these things. It should be driven by the actual needs and voices of Camden’s students and families — nothing more.

For now, things will stay the same, but the conversation will likely be revisited. When it is, whatever the outcome—dissolving the magnet schools or maintaining them—let it be what’s best for all of Camden’s students. Unfortunately, that likely doesn’t happen until the people who know their students best—Camden City—regains control of its schools. 

When will the conversation about dissolving the school takeover take place?