U.S. Education Secretary makes a visit to Camden High to cap weeklong bus tour

When U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and an entourage stepped into her senior seminar class at Camden High School, student Shania Edmondson barely looked up from her presentation.

Cardona took a front-row seat and listened closely as Edmondson and three other students shared with their classmates the military as a possible option after high school. Cardona praised Edmondson for staying focused and applauded the “12+” program that helps Camden students figure out life after high school.

“We want to see this across the country,” Cardona said. “Programs like this are opening doors.”

The district received a $370,000 grant from the Camden Education Fund, a nonprofit that is working to improve the city’s troubled public education system, to set up “PLUS” centers at Camden High and Eastside High School.

Based in Philadelphia, 12+ placed staff members in Camden’s traditional high schools to work with ninth through 12th graders. The program’s students determine post-secondary goals, apply for college, and complete financial aid paperwork.

Cardona spent several hours at Camden High Friday, the last stop of his weeklong bus tour to mark the start of the school year. After a brief tour of the sprawling $133 million complex, the newest traditional public school in the city, Cardona met privately with a group of students.

The five-day bus tour has become an annual tradition recently for education secretaries. Earlier this week, Cardona visited Pennsylvania, making stops in Pittsburgh, Reading, Allentown, and Philadelphia, where he discussed President Joe Biden’s debt forgiveness and public service loan forgiveness program.

» READ MORE: Biden student loan forgiveness: Who’s eligible, what’s the income limit, and how will it work?

In Camden, Cardona pushed for partnerships and programs to provide more mental health support and help students struggling with learning loss from when schools turned to remote learning during the pandemic. The Camden district, which has about 5,800 in its traditional schools, was among the last in New Jersey to fully reopen.

“The last two years, our kids have suffered enough,” Cardona said during a brief news conference. “This year, we have to double down, improve, raise the bar, give them more opportunities. We want to see our students have the opportunity to catch up. academically, (and) the social and emotional support they need not only to survive but thrive after the pandemic.”

Cardona also pushed a call by Biden for more volunteers to step up as mentors and tutors. He was joined Friday by Michael D. Smith, CEO of AmeriCorps, which has 5,000 people deployed in New Jersey.

“We know teachers and schools need more money,” he said. “But they need all of us.”

Cardona, who was accompanied by Camden schools chief Katrina McCombs and local officials, sidestepped a question about Camden’s status as a state takeover district. The school system has been under state control since 2013, when former Gov. Chris Christie took over the district because of poor student performance.

“At the end of the day, it’s about making sure our students have options and they can achieve at all levels,” he said.