By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
At the heart of fixing Camden’s broken school system is a key element Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard has been hammering away at since taking office — more involvement from the community and from families.
“The bottom line is when families are more engaged in their student’s academic experience, student achievement goes up, behavioral problems go down and ultimately more kids are graduating high school better prepared for college or a career,” Rouhanifard said.
Today he unveiled the second of four Camden parent-partnership sites. It’s a term he’s given to community centers that have agreed to partner with the school district and act as a resource for education and support. This one is at the Salvation Army Kroc Center.
“The idea is that these are hubs for the community outside of school buildings that they can access. So they don’t always have to go to their school for school specific information. We want community wide resources and information to be accessible by all families,” Rouhanifard said.
“If you think of it in terms of the third destination, um home and then work or school, where is that third destination?” asked Kroc Center Administrator Major Paul Cain.
In Camden there’s very few.
“We’ll be able to offer both educational programs, social programs, programs for fitness, health and wellness really serving the whole person,” Cain said.
They’ve coined it a “family university.” All public school parents and caregivers will be able to attend at least one class at the Kroc a month. Staff will be trained on all district information and serve as a full service help desk. Right now there are a little over 1,700 families that have full memberships to the center. The district will be offering 150 scholarships for it.
“Now we have a place for the kids to come and parents as well. We can learn from each other, we can meet people,” said Camden parent Alicia Rivera.
With two kids gone through and a 12 year-old still a part of the school system, Rivera only wishes this had been around sooner.
“As a mother, I didn’t finish school so I’ll be taking some of those classes because that will teach me more so I can teach my kids as well,” she said.
The superintendent and mayor just wrapped up a tour traveling to each ward in the city getting input from parents and families on the struggles facing each of the neighborhoods and their schools and what they’d like to see done to fix them.
“It was a great moment that we heard from so many families that change is needed and there is a demand for something different here and we need to rethink our school system and to provide better opportunities for students and families,” Rouhanifard said.
And he says resources like the food pantry and library are available to anyone in the city, not just district parents.