In addition to LEAP Academy University Charter School’s financial woes, the school has been hit was a lawsuit alleging misappropriation of school and scholarship money.

The lawsuit filed in January by LEAP employee Mark Paoli, who served as the school facilities manager for 12 years before being demoted in May, alleges LEAP founder and board chair Gloria Bonilla-Santiago “routinely demanded that he perform work on her home while on LEAP Academy time and using LEAP Academy, tools, equipment and supplies.”

Some examples of the work Bonilla-Santiago allegedly ordered Paoli to do during school hours included fixing the gutter, leaks and the air-conditioning system in her house.

Though 2011 is long gone, it continues to haunt Camden Mayor Dana L. Redd.

In addition to being the poorest city in the nation that year, Camden had the highest crime rate in the country.

CQ Press recently released its official ranking of 432 cities based on 2011 rates of reported crimes in a half-dozen categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and vehicle theft.

In case you missed it, I wrote Thursday about the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy’s group’s plan to build its first school at the site the state had reserved for the Lanning Square Elementary School and expand from there.

One of the issues surrounding this plan that I didn’t mention in the article is that the Camden Board of Education, in order to finish its long-term plan, must urgently work out what KIPP’s enrollment will be.

According to the Renaissance school project’s application, 2,800 students would eventually be educated within its five schools.

The Camden Board of Education will host a continental breakfast Tuesday morning to discuss the role of the Regional Achievement Center (RAC) in Camden and its responsibility in the district.

David Hardy Jr., state-appointed executive director of the center, will lead a discussion on how the district and RAC are working together. The center is one of seven established statewide in districts with low test scores and high achievement gaps.

Hardy and his crew of state education specialists are assigned to help Camden administrators and teachers improve academic performance in the district following abysmal state test scores last year. Twenty-three of the city’s 26 public schools ranked among the state's lowest performers, making them "priority schools." (Read background HERE.)

The “Visions of Camden” exhibit scheduled to open Thursday at Rutgers-Camden will feature various artwork and artifacts of Camden’s past.

My colleague, Kevin Riordan, wrote earlier this week about some of the artists who will be featured such as artist, author, and Catholic brother Michael O'Neill McGrath.

The exhibition at the Stedman Gallery on the Rutgers-Camden campus is free of charge and open to the public. The display, which includes glass slides, photographs, and prints of various moments throughout Camden’s history, will run from Jan. 17 through March 1.

Camden’s poverty and homicide record year has attracted the attention of a New York nonprofit group that works with abandoned and abused animals.

Guardians of Rescue hopes to establish a chapter in the city that would provide education on humane treatment of animals, micro-chipping, and free vaccinations, among other programs. The groups hopes to find a site by February.

Camden is one of the most dangerous cities (last year the city broke its homicide record with 67 slayings) in the country and has the poorest population (more than 42 percent of residents live in poverty).

Everyone is doing a top XYZ of 2012, so here is my top 10 Camden stories of 2012. They are a combination of stories that graced our front pages or simply created a lot of buzz in the community.

No. 10- Pedro Hernandez
Camden is no stranger to national news, but this case brought some unexpected worldwide attention to little Camden. In May, authorities in New York said Pedro Hernandez, 51, who grew up in North Camden, had admitted to strangling 6-year-old Etan Patz and putting his body in the trash 33 years ago. Hernandez allegedly confessed to a prayer group at St. Anthony of Padua in the 1980s in Cramer Hill. His first wife, Daisy, still resides in Camden. Hernandez pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and is awaiting trial.

No. 9- Joseph D. Carruth
Joseph D. Carruth, whom the board terminated as principal of Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School in 2006, returned to the district in August as principal on special assignment.
Carruth, 44, sued under the state’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act, alleging that the district fired him for publicly reporting in 2005 that he was asked to tamper with students’ state test scores. He was awarded an $860,000 settlement last year. He is now working with the district’s safety and security department reviewing bullying and intimidation guidelines and security protocols at the schools.

A week after a shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 20 children and six adults, the National Rifle Association announced that the best way to prevent a recurrence "of this unspeakable crime" is to have an armed police officer at every school throughout the country.

As my colleague, Carolyn Davis, reported in today’s Inquirer most school and political leaders in the Philadelphia region disagreed with the NRA’s suggestion.

But Camden’s school district executive director of safety and security Gaylen Conley, who used to work in the Philadelphia School District, said Friday that schools and malls are the “lowest protected” places and the most targeted for mass shootings.