New Camden superintendent optimistic about challenge

With his suit jacket off and dress-shirt sleeves rolled up, new Camden Schools Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard walks through the hallways of Woodrow Wilson High School on the Friday before classes start, listening to the two principals talk about the needs for the forthcoming year.

Wilson has requested 54 new security cameras, but could use more, co-principals Deborah Olusa and Lisa Thomas say. The building has 57 exits, which the nearly 1,000 students could use to sneak out.

Also on the Wilson wish list: more bilingual and special-education teachers.

Rouhanifard makes a mental note of the request and continues walking, listening. He maintains eye contact when asking or responding to questions, never raising his voice.

He introduces himself as Paymon to principals and janitors alike. "I'm not a very formal person," he later explains.

In his first sit-down interview since he was appointed as Camden's chief of schools, Rouhanifard spoke about his plan for the failing district, which was taken over by the state in June.

As students return to school Monday, Rouhanifard will be at various schools, greeting families and getting to know them. He will hear what principals, teachers, parents, and students like and don't like. Then he'll compare those notes with his own evaluation and unveil a master plan in December, he said Friday.

"I certainly don't intend to be that superintendent who locks him or herself up in the office," he said. "I want to be out there."

The statistics - 49 percent graduation rate, 19 percent proficiency in language arts among the district's fourth graders, 28 percent proficiency in math among the district's 11th graders - are grim, and Rouhanifard will have a tough job. But he says he feels up to the task of leading the 12,000-student public school district.

In addition to having a mentor assigned to him by the state because he is not yet certified as superintendent, he will have plenty of state help and will be putting together a senior leadership team to work with him out of the central office.

"No one person can do this alone," he said.

At 32 years old, with only two years' teaching experience, Rouhanifard has received harsh criticism from some who say he lacks the background to lead the district.

Rouhanifard said he respects everyone's opinion. He added, "This isn't my first rodeo."

His work in New York City and Newark, N.J., focused on creating "equitable access to quality schools for all students," whether it was streamlining the high school application process in Newark or opening a diverse portfolio of schools in New York, he said.

His goal for Camden is the same: "To create a diverse set of high-quality schools that all parents can access," he said.

Rouhanifard was born in Iran and fled with his family when he was 7 amid revolutionary upheaval. His family settled in Tennessee, where he was in an English as a Second Language program at his local school.

He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in economics and political science, and spent two years as a sixth-grade teacher in West Harlem with Teach for America.

He then worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs and the private-equity firm AEA Investors L.P. for four years before being hired in 2009 as chief of staff to the deputy chancellor in the New York City Department of Education. He rose through the department and became chief executive of the Office of Portfolio Management.

In that role, he oversaw the opening of 150 schools, most of which he says were traditional public schools, and the transformation of 45 to 60 low-performing schools.

Then, in Newark, he helped execute the new teacher contract, which includes merit pay, a frowned-upon concept by teachers' unions, including Camden's.

He also created a high school application process that lets families rank their top high schools, including magnet schools, and avoid applying to each individual school.

Rouhanifard will look to do the same in Camden.

"It's a matter of timing," he said. Though his first three months in Camden will include lots of watching and listening, Rouhanifard is already looking to implement significant changes such as safety plans for each school.

He met with Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson to discuss a safe-corridors initiative, which would put more police along school routes.

He will also lead contract negotiations with the teachers union. The union's three-year contract expired June 30 and union president Laverne Harvey is nervous.

"It's going to be a long and hard road," Harvey said last week.

Joseph DelGrosso, head of the Newark Teachers Union and a teacher for 25 years, said he worked with Rouhanifard when his union and the district were seeking retroactive pay for teachers who had been working without a contract.

"We had dealt with him on numerous occasions. He was competent in the job he was given," DelGrosso said. When one conversation led to Rouhanifard's talking to him about education, however, the official's lack of experience turned him off, DelGrosso said.

"I told him, 'Come back when you shave,' " DelGrosso said.

But Marc Sternberg, senior deputy chancellor for strategy and policy in the New York City School District, who worked with Rouhanifard in New York, said Rouhanifard's classroom experience and personal background make him "uniquely qualified" for his new undertaking.

"This is not a careless undertaking for Paymon. This is his DNA. He wants for the children of Camden what his parents wanted for him," Sternberg said.

Sternberg said that Rouhanifard was used to working with a quality team and that he believed the new superintendent would put together such a team in Camden, including experts in areas where has less experience.

Some skeptics, including Harvey and other teachers, say Rouhanifard was sent to Camden to carry out an agenda.

Asked whether his and the state's plan is to turn the district all-charter, Rouhanifard responded: "I'm here to learn and evaluate. . . . I'm going to look at a host of different issues, and I need to investigate that deeply before we come to any recommendations."

Rouhanifard has moved into the Victor in downtown Camden, leaving his wife behind in the Bronx, where they have lived for the last few years. She is finishing a doctorate program and will join him in Camden in about a year.

Rouhanifard's apartment consists of a "mattress on the ground and two poorly assembled Ikea chairs," he said. He can see his office at the Camden school administration building from his apartment window.

"I'm fired up to lead the work here in Camden," he said.

Title: Camden School District superintendent

Salary: $210,000

Age: 32

Residence: Camden

Born: Iran

Raised: Iran until 6, then Tennessee

College: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, bachelor's degree in economics and political science

Previous jobs: Chief strategy and innovation officer, Newark (N.J.) public schools (October 2012–August 2013)

Chief executive officer, Office of Portfolio Management in the New York City Department of Education (2010–12)

Chief of staff to deputy chancellor in the New York Department of Education (2009–10)

Associate at AEA Investors L.P. (2007–09)

Analyst at Goldman Sachs (2005–07)

Sixth-grade teacher in West Harlem with Teach for America (2003-05)

First impression of Camden: The "genuine warm reaction" he has received.

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