Study Finds Camden Public Schools Underreporting Incidents Of Violence & Vandalism
By David Madden
CAMDEN, Nj (CBS) -- New Jersey education officials issued a scathing report earlier this week on how Camden public schools comply with a legal requirement to report violent incidents to authorities.
The state evaluated Camden's compliance with the Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System. The bottom line -- most situations didn't get into the system for one reason or another.
Justin Barra is a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Department.
"It looked like there were problems both in transmitting information from the schools to the district level and then also from the district level to the state level."
That led to suggestions in some circles that Camden schools were a lot safer than they may, in fact, be.
The report does not delve into whether this was merely a mistake, or a move to hide what could be embarrassing statistics from public view.
The bottom line is Camden school leaders have until March 1 to submit a plan to correct the situation.
The district superintendent did not return calls seeking comment.
