Camden School Cuts Leaves Critical Support Positions Empty
BY CHARLES CURTIS III | For AC JosepH Media
CAMDEN — It is August and as students and parents alike prepare for the start of a new school year, at Forest Hill Elementary School as Tracy E. Allen sits quietly in what used to be her office.
Methodically she sorts food, diapers, and clothes into separate bags. Hall notes the needs of each parent and carefully packs bags tailored to each parent, providing families with essential support.
What was once a job for Allen, is now considered community service. Allen’s contract for the Camden City School District expired on June 30 when she worked as a family operations coordinator.
The contract loss was part of the massive financial cuts the school district has made to plug huge deficit that has created controversy throughout the district.
Allen was one of the 302 employees whose positions in the district were cut as a result of the $91 million deficit announced in late April. Family operations coordinators, or FOC are described as the liaison between families and schools.
Now that the position is removed from the district entirely, families will have to cope with the loss of such a vital component of the school and community at large.
“If parents have a concern that they need to speak to the principal or need to speak to the lead educator, I’m able to set up that meeting with the parent,” Allen said. “And I’m also able to sit in on those meetings so I can also be an advocate for the parents too.”
Allen’s former duties included providing families with resources, facilitating grade-level education workshops for parents, and coordinating family activities such as Literacy Night.
“I was on a national scholastic webinar in January. And the number of people who were on that webinar had something to do with family engagement. The title was not the same. But it was about family engagement,” Allen said.
“I attended in person to present at the National Family Engagement conference in Minneapolis and the people in that room all had something to do with family engagement. So, when I got the news, Camden was gonna abolish our position. I was shocked.”
Allen remains perplexed as to why the position would be abolished when it has served as a national model for school and community relations.
“She doesn’t talk to the kids. She feels for the kids,” Debbie Pollit said. “She’s like that. She’s like another parent to me. I’m very upset about that. I don’t feel like Miss Allen should have to leave. I love Miss Allen so much. She puts too much work in the school system for y’all to just let her go so easily.”
For Allen, she knows her work remains too important to completely walk away.
“I could easily tell parents when they call me that no, I’m not the family and operations coordinator at Forest Hill anymore but you know that’s not what me and the rest of my team are about,” Allen said. “I can honestly say that, what I’m doing the rest of the FOCs, they’re doing.”
Videos on social media have been circulating of Allen along with her former FOC colleague Lidia Carerro riding around delivering groceries and other items to families.
“I was so shocked, I instantly started crying when I found out. I didn’t cry for myself -I cried for the kids,” Carerro said, who is overcome with emotion. “You [CCSD] hurt a lot of people. To this day, I still cry.”
The Camden school deficit has left many individuals stressed, deeply depressed, and highly anxious. Carerro was the FOC at Vets. She is a single mother of four children, one of whom is battling a health condition.
“My daughter had brain surgery and I’m raising my four kids without a job since the incident till now I just sit in my car,” said Carerro who looks to God and her colleagues for support. “We still use our text group is what helps me get through the FOCs are more than coworkers, we’re a family and my belief in God is unwavering.”
Rebecca Arriga, another former FOC, added: “The work demands are difficult, but these women have the heart of servants. This work is not for the faint of heart.”
Despite her job loss, Allen’s primary concerns have been with families and students.
“When I first lost my job my first thought was, ‘what about the kids?'” Allen said.
Her concerns were echoed by Derek Williams, the most immediate past FOC at Morgan Village. Williams has had to cope with not only the loss of his position but the closure of the school as another consequence of CCSD’s budget crisis.
As a result, schools like Forest Hill are expanding from K-6th to now include seventh and eighth grade.
“My first initial thoughts when I heard about the deficits were that it’ll affect the students more than me, because now they’re displaced,” Williams said. “Our sixth and seventh graders we’re gonna have to go back to their family schools respectfully or their neighborhood school.”
Allen added: “There will be no behavior specialist. There will be no dean, there will be no climate and culture, and there will be FOCs.”
Williams’ and Allen’s concerns for social-emotional wellness are not without merit. As they look to the future with concern, many former employees have already started to feel the negative mental health effects of CCSD’s sweeping and sudden changes.
“It is mentally draining, you know, I’m not in this position, but when I answer my phone and somebody needs help, I still try to help them,” said Allen, who was still visibly distraught as she continued to talk about the job loss.
As many individuals quantify the impact of the deficit and job losses many have yet to internalize the long-term mental health impact that this will have within the community.
Christine Schneider was a teacher at Forest Hill for the last two years. During the 2024-2025 school year, Schneider taught second grade.
“I wore many caps. I was off the record, counselor, social worker, making sure that I was meeting my students’ needs, not only academically but also socially and emotionally because a lot of those kiddos often came off a weekend filled with baggage that they needed to unpack and then,” said Schneider.
Schneider reflects on the mental anguish the changes have already caused her.
“When I got the news my heart dropped,” she said. “My mental health was impacted because I’ve had to go through and start all over. I had to start the interview process all over again, and the anxiety and the stress that it caused me.
“What if I didn’t have a job? What if I couldn’t find something? What am I going to do financially? I’m a single parent of two daughters. I’m a single-income household.”
As Schneider prepares for the upcoming school year she has to do so knowing she won’t be returning to her beloved school.
“I got into a new position. I’m having anxiety over that because of that, and I keep going back and I keep talking about Camden City and how much I loved it so much, and that I really didn’t anticipate leaving but I thought I was going to retire in Camden City,” said a tearful Schneider.
Lai-Onoa Welcome a former colleague of Schneider, mirrors her frustrations and concerns. Welcome served Forest Hill as its climate and culture coordinator; she was subsequently laid off as a result of the deficit.
“I’ve experienced a lot of depression and trauma. It was traumatic for me because I’m 49 and I have three sons to take care of. Why isn’t there any job security?” said Welcome. “This was more than a team, it was a family and this situation broke my heart.”
Teacher’s union President Pam Clark teachers who are part of the organization have access to mental health services, depending on their contract.
“I implore everyone to seek some type of counseling, it’s important to take care of our mental health,” Clark said. “When I approached the superintendent with my concerns, I was told that we will have to leverage the closure of services with grassroots solutions like PTA and PTO.”
According to a report by the South Jersey Institute for Population Health in 2020. Camden County (County) had the highest rate of mental health distress in NJ; 18% of Black resident-respondents reported MH distress—6 percentage points higher than White resident-respondents (CCNA, 2020).
The report continues by honing in on the prevalence of mental health issues amongst Camden city residents.
According to the report Camden City (Camden) is designated a medically underserved area and has one of the highest crime rates in America. In Camden, most residents are not white: 42.9% identify as Black or AA, 52.8% identify as Hispanic or Latino (US Census Bureau).
“Dwindling services only increase the vulnerability of the student population and the likelihood of developing mental health issues later in life,” said Kevin Williams Sr. Williams served CCSD as a behavior specialist for two years during that time he served multiple schools including Catto, Davis, Forest Hill, and Cream.
He served both Cream and Forest Hill during the 2024-2025 school year.
In 2022, Camden County was found to be more vulnerable to mental illness than 80% of the United States, with most of the variance in vulnerability determined by Camden City (CCNA, 2020).
As a behavior specialist Kevin Williams led behavior interventions, worked with general and special education, closely collaborated with admin, and school fundraisers that funded student enrichment, trips, and incentives.
At Forest , Kevin Williams together with Welcome led town halls, a school-wide initiative to set expectations, and goals. The town halls acted as a social-emotional learning support system where informative and motivational information would be disseminated.
“I spoke to our school nurse and our learning consultant, and we all agreed Social Emotional Learning is the most important piece of their development,” Kevin Williams said. “SEL is important because once you get to that, then you can get to the core, which is education.
“They’re adding 7th and 8th grade to Forest Hill with more needs and challenges, more needs and challenges, they are putting these students at risk.”
Kevin Williams admits that he himself has not been immune to the mental anguish associated with the deficit.
“I use the end of the year to reflect on my work but this year I was filled with stress and anxiety,” Williams said. “I was embarrassed because I’m a private person but this was public information. If I weren’t a man of God I’d still be stressed and nervous.”
Many parents are concerned about the outlook of the school year in the absence of Kevin Williams’s presence.
“How are the students gonna be able to talk to anybody? My daughter had to go there and talk to them all the time,” said Pollit.
As the school year swiftly approaches, the community braces for a school year of extreme uncertainty and without their essential anchors in place. In the midst of the uncertainty, individuals like Allen and Carerro are determined to bridge the gap in resources, however with no income at the moment their capacity to service the community is greatly diminished and isn’t feasible as a long term solution.
“Even though my position ended June 30, I still have parents reaching out to me. I’m still helping them, I’m still giving them resources,” Allen said.
“I’ll be there to see my kids off on the first day of school,” Carerro said. “They mean so much to me.” Says Carerro.
Many community members are concerned that we are witnessing the beginning of a mental health crisis -one engineered by poor decision-making and a gross mismanagement of funds.
“It’s going to be chaotic. Did they consider the impact on parents? That’s why no matter what the parents can still call me,” said Carerro.
Kevin Williams said the district can expect to see higher rates of teacher burnout, an increase in humiliation, harassment, intimidation, and an increase in angry parents.
“Parents are the bread of the public school system,” he said.
The community is looking to the upcoming Camden City School Board meeting set to take place on Tuesday, August 26 to inquire about how the school system plans to leverage the lack of resources and funding for the upcoming school year.
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