This story was originally published by NJ Spotlight News through the NJ News Wire.
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What, exactly, does a funeral home director know about running a restaurant?
That’s what some experts are asking after the Newark school board unanimously handed a local mortician a $700,000 contract to train students in hotel and food-service business leadership.
Carolyn Whigham — whose roster of celebrity funeral arrangements includes Whitney Houston’s — holds degrees in mortuary science, divinity, and pastoral counseling, according to her online bio. It lacks mention, though, of any teaching expertise or leadership roles in hotels, restaurants, or tourism.
Neither Whigham nor the district would answer any of NJ Spotlight News’ questions about her credentials. Nor would they disclose her plans for “Developing Next-Level Awareness,” her training program for students and staff. And they won’t say how she got on the district’s radar for this contract award, either.
“The essence of Carolyn Whigham is captured within her powerful name,” the funeral home’s website says. “It is synonymous with trust & influence, and she wears it well.”
Whigham Funeral Home in the Central Ward has handled services for high-profile figures like jazz singer Sarah Vaughan; Rep. Donald Payne; the poet and activist Amiri Baraka, father of Mayor Ras Baraka; and Lance Owens, the brother of entertainer Queen Latifah. Whigham has also hosted a retreat for the Newark school board and a summer program for Newark teens at her mountain property in Warren County, she says.
Some of her clients aren’t so well known. An online obituary shows she handled the funeral arrangements for Newark Superintendent Roger León’s mother, Edith León, in 2023.
“It’s absolutely hysterical,” Michael Iovino, secretary-treasurer of the Newark Teachers Union and a veteran educator, said of the planned teacher training led by a mortician. Decades in the district have made him hard to faze, he says, but “This is still weird.”
He imagined a more logical choice — say, a hotel operator. “If you had told me it was, you know, somebody from the Hilton administration who was going to be doing this, I would be less surprised.”
Experts question Newark district’s spending, funeral director’s qualifications
This “definitely raises red flags,” said Shaun Dougherty, a Boston College professor of education and policy with 15 years of research experience in career and technical education, the updated term for vocational training.
In the 1980s and 1990s, some schools used job training to filter out kids who were struggling with required academic courses, he said. “It put poor Black and brown kids into programs that were pretty low value-added,” he told NJ Spotlight News.
Now, this Newark pact — along with a massive policy and funding push nationally to expand vocational training in the past five years or so — makes him wonder whether more low-value programs are creeping back in.
Officials “might have a real hard time answering your questions” about tangible student benefits, says Dougherty, placing these offerings in a “more concerning sort of category.”
The Newark schools’ deal with the funeral home director comes amid intense political and community scrutiny of district finances. Under León, the district has faced criticism for lavish spending — from a $500 million elementary school lease to a staff “fun day” party that state officials flagged as misuse of funds, forcing the district to reimburse the state.
Community members and outsiders have also questioned why the district has sent so many administrators to conferences in resort destinations like Miami; Palm Springs, California; and Puerto Rico.
New Jersey’s largest school district has a 2026-27 budget of $1.67 billion, more than 80% from state taxpayers.
It’s not known whether Whigham intends to act as the classroom instructor or subcontract the work. It’s also not clear whether she plans to pay herself a hefty executive director salary. The district heavily redacted her proposal, including who will be on her management team, when it was provided to NJ Spotlight News via a public records request.
If she plans to outsource classroom work, observers ask, why send a substantial education contract through a funeral home in the first place?
According to her proposal, Whigham’s program “prepares students for early exposure to the hospitality industry, including food service, event management, tourism and hotel operations.”
Organizing funerals and networking with vendors is different from training students in restaurant and hotel business leadership, or even wedding planning, critics say. And without proper certifications, instructors can’t provide the industry credentials that students need to get hired, experts warn.
Industry-recognized credentials vary in quality
Vocational programs function a lot like advanced placement classes in academic tracks. Students take specialized courses in computer science or health care, for instance, and can pass certification exams to earn industry-recognized credentials.
New Jersey offers a huge range of quality in these programs, experts say. When done right, vocational training can transform low-achieving 8th graders into focused high school students who learn skills and earn credentials like a two-year associate’s degree, says Rachel Rosen, an education researcher who has studied these initiatives in New York City.
Still, such education has widespread challenges. It can be hard to find teachers with the appropriate professional licenses. Students might not take, let alone pass, the final test. Many kids walk away short of credentials.
In the county-run Essex County Newark Tech, for example, only about 30% of the students enrolled in career pathways earned one or more industry-recognized credential in 2024-2025. About 19% did that year at the district-run Technology High School.
And at the district-run Newark Vocational High School, zero students obtained credentials. Fewer than 10% could do math on grade level, and only about 40% read proficiently. What’s more: The school already has a hospitality and tourism program including event planning, leadership and industry “soft skills” among its offerings, according to its website.
Funeral director’s proposal was recommended by León
Public reports don’t generally track how many students in individual schools earn college credits or professional internships, making it hard to evaluate whether they’re truly being set up for success. Historically, experts also noted a mismatch in New Jersey, in which students’ credentials often didn’t align with the jobs in top demand.
Amid those challenges, Newark school officials approved a funeral director for a six-figure, three-year contract running through June 20, 2029 — with the option to renew for two more years — to train students in hotel and restaurant leadership.
Whigham’s proposal was recommended by León, among other administrators, and backed 9-0 by the school board. Of 41 vendors asked to submit competitive bids, 22 responded. Whigham’s proposal was ranked fourth, securing one of five awards to provide student enrichment, expanded learning and teacher professional development.
According to the district’s request for proposals, approved providers would offer “a high quality, research-based program that has compelling evidence of demonstrated success.”
In her proposal, Whigham cited her prior work with the Newark school board and city teens as evidence of her effectiveness, noting “positive participant feedback and continued collaboration efforts.”
District evaluators praised her prospective program for “building essential soft skills” like empathy, conflict resolution, and leadership, while saying it aligns with the district’s hospitality, tourism, event planning, and entrepreneurship curricula.
According to her proposal, Whigham’s curriculum meets state standards by focusing on a requirement for hospitality and tourism industry jobs that students “demonstrate leadership qualities and collaboration with others.”
It also says her program will align with state standards for guest communications and safety risks in kitchens and hotels.
Funeral director’s program could start at 5 schools
John Hillard, a retired career and technical education expert with decades of experience in New Jersey, said it was “totally unusual” for a district vocational program to be run by someone with unrelated expertise.
State-approved vocational tracks usually feature a multiyear course series, industry certifications and college partnerships, he says, with teachers certified in career and technical education.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Education confirmed that Whigham’s program is not a state-approved track leading to “a high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand occupation.” Nor does it yield industry-recognized credentials.
It operates more like an uncertified extracurricular program bought from a vendor, which requires no credentialed instructor and does not fall under state oversight. That is “basically, a fluff, career exploration program type-of-thing,” said Hillard, former president of the Career and Technical Education Association of New Jersey.
Whigham plans to provide three-hour sessions for groups of 25 students at $2,500 per class, offered to grades 6-12, according to her approved proposal. She intends to start with at least five high schools: Newark Vocational, Arts High, West Side, Eagle Academy and Newark School of Global Studies.
From September to June, her school-year program totals $200,000, with a summer intensive program in July and August totaling $80,000, or $20,000 per week. The contract covers all student field trip admissions and transportation, paid for by the Newark school board.
Additionally, Whigham submitted a cost proposal for teacher training. For one or two instructors to train teachers in hotel and restaurant leadership soft skills, she would charge $2,500 per half-day and $4,500 per full day for three years, with a chance to renew for years four and five. Her virtual and in-person sessions for teachers total $200,000 for the school year, plus $20,000 per week for a summer intensive and $25,000 for supplies.
A nationwide push toward high school job training was motivated by findings from the late 1980s that showed roughly half of diploma-holders who did not go on to college failed to land jobs for nearly a decade after graduating, experts say.
Well-done vocational programs use data on regional needs to align their training directly with the labor market so students are prepared for available jobs, says Rosen, head of the Center for Effective Career and Technical Education, a national research hub.
Their lessons are taught by experts in growing fields and give students valuable credentials like licenses or college credits, which can help them nab entry-level positions in tech or as visiting nurses, emergency medical technicians or medical secretaries, for example.
Fly-by-night programs, on the other hand, are disconnected workshops that leave kids with a useless certificate and vague soft-skill credits, experts say. They often lack a clear plan and are taught by people without experience in the field.
Most vocational programs operate within strict state and federal guardrails, according to Adriana Harrington, the head of policy at ExcelinEd, a nonprofit that helps states audit their vocational programs. As a result, she said, low-quality offerings are “an extreme outlier.”
