The Camden City School District wants to shut down FOUR public schools at the end of this school year. Ms. Katrina McCombs, superintendent of schools, claims that this will save the district money, but it won't. The reality is this catastrophic decision will cost the district much more than it saves.

Closing four schools would involve upending the lives of hundreds of our students, their families and the educators who staff those buildings. Children would be forced to walk more than a mile through unfamiliar neighborhoods or ride the bus for more than two hours a day. Students should not have to spend hours each day traveling to school when they have accessible, familiar neighborhood schools that they know and love right now. Parents should not have to choose between sending their kids between two equally inconvenient schools for their children.

This decision's long-term impact would be disastrous for the school district, the students, the community and Camden City. Closing the doors of beloved schools would leave students confused and abandoned. It would lower enrollment in the public school system, potentially starving the district of invaluable school funding. Parents deserve a say in their children's education, and if children in the Camden City Public School district are forced out of the school district, their parents will lose even more control of the school system.

This decision is flat-out wrong. There are only negative consequences. Unnecessarily closing schools hurts students, their families, the educators who work in them, and the community-at-large.

Stand up for what's right in Camden: Tell Ms. McCombs to publicly promise she will keep all public schools in the Camden City School District open.