Elected officials in Camden want a new school superintendent. Katrina McCombs proclaims she isn’t quitting

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The head of the Camden City School District said she is not going anywhere “unless God allows it.”

State School Superintendent Katrina T. McCombs responded to the letter to Acting Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer from five elected officials, including School Advisory Board President N’Namdee Nelson, urging him to replace McCombs. They said the city “would benefit from new leadership.”

The letter was first reported by New Jersey Globe.

Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen, City Council President Angel Fuentes, Assemblyman William Spearman and state Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez were the other signatories.

McCombs made her remarks last week during a special school board meeting to fill two vacancies.

“As long as I am here in this space and this place, I will serve and do everything that I possibly can to make sure that our young people can get what they need,” she said. “Am I perfect? Absolutely not, absolutely not. I am not perfect. What I inherited, we’ve done the best that we could with it.”

Camden’s schools have been under state control for more than a decade. Since the takeover, the district has made modest gains in graduation and dropout rates. According to the latest data available, 10.8% of all city students met expectations in language arts, compared to 51.3% across the state, and 10% met expectations in math, compared to 38.2% statewide on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment.

The elected leaders wrote to Dehmer that Camden is on the cusp of growth and opportunity and the school district needs a new leader “to guide our school district toward the best possible student educational outcomes,” according to New Jersey Globe.

WHYY News has not received a comment or a response from the state Department of Education regarding the letter to Dehmer.

During last week’s meeting, a couple of residents spoke in support of McCombs and were critical of Nelson, who was elevated to board president in September.

“What I read in the article, seeing a board member put their John Hancock on a piece of paper calling for the removal of your fellow body board member, that’s a violation, bro,” Gary Frazier said to Nelson. “You did that, man, you showed the community your hand. You showed us where you lie at.”

Resident Vida Neil told the board she was upset when she saw the Globe article.

“She was sold to us as a down-home Camden girl, a Centerville girl,” she said. “The state just said hooray hoorah to Katrina McCombs in the job that she’s doing in Camden.”

The attempted ouster of McCombs after she called on Nelson’s predecessor, Wasim Muhammad, to step down following the public outcry from a $2 million settlement between the district and Salema Hicks Robinson for “willful misconduct,” “negligence in supervising Muhammad” and for permitting “a sexually hostile educational environment.”

Muhammad stepped down a week later. He was a teammate with Mayor Carstarphen on Camden High School’s undefeated championship basketball team in 1986. McCombs was a classmate of theirs, and a cheerleader at the time.

“For all that I poured in, I have been disrespected,” McCombs said. “I’m not really sure as to why, but it doesn’t even matter, because at the end of the day…any distraction from within or without, that jeopardizes the forward advancement of the Black and Brown students in this district that we serve, I don’t care where it comes from, it’s a distraction, It needs to be uprooted and moved out.”

McCombs’ contract with the state runs through the end of the current school year. She has been at the helm of Camden schools since 2018.