NJ schools still face high absenteeism and discipline problems thanks to pandemic

Students in New Jersey and nationwide are still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic's outsized impact on their mental well-being, according to attendance and discipline data released for the 2022-23 academic year by the state Education Department on Wednesday.

Chronic absenteeism rates and the number of violent and bullying incidents remain higher than before the pandemic, giving schools a lot of work to do in addition to addressing the accompanying problem of learning loss caused by the pandemic.

A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% of a 180-day school year.

"These numbers are well above where we were pre-pandemic," Jessica Merville, data expert and director of the department's Office of Performance Management, told State Board of Education members, referring to absenteeism data.

Story continues below photo gallery.

The number of suspensions and incidents of bullying and violence in New Jersey's public schools went up in academic year 2022-23. There were 44,262 cases of removals from school, compared with 36,791 in 2021-22 and 37,964 in 2018-19. Numbers were not reported for 2019-20, when schools were closed during the pandemic and students learned remotely.

Chronic absenteeism is still high

Chronic absenteeism is also up, two years after schools reopened full-time and in-person in 2021. The rate in New Jersey is 16.1 % — still higher than pre-pandemic levels, but among the lowest nationally.

The state's chronic absenteeism rate was 10.6% in 2018-19. It went up to 13.1% in 2020-21 and was the highest, at 18.1%, in 2021-22. Rates were not calculated in 2019-20.

Children may be staying home more often when they feel ill, and busing or transportation problems are factors driving the problem, but continuing anxiety and depression among youth is a major factor, Kathleen Ehling, assistant commissioner of the Education Department, told board members.

Chronic absences nationwide nearly doubled, rising from 16% before the pandemic to nearly 30% by the 2021-22 school year, reports the monitoring website AttendanceWorks. In New Jersey, 45% of 651 districts experienced high chronic absenteeism in 2022, compared with 25% in 2018.

New website to address absenteeism

The Murphy administration has started to address New Jersey's absenteeism problem, after watchdog groups and reports repeatedly called attention to these issues for two years after the COVID-19 health emergency ended.

State officials said Wednesday that the Education Department was releasing a new website dedicated to helping schools address their absenteeism problems with strategies and data that helps target individual students and root causes.

The website, called Conditions for Learning, Strategies for Success, will come with a toolkit and information encouraging districts to use remaining federal COVID relief funds to further engage students.

State Board of Education members parried with department officials, asking what the state was doing to mitigate the trend. In 2023, over 70% of schools had 10% or higher chronic absentees, compared with only 32% of schools in 2018-19, Merville said. Students experiencing homelessness and those in foster care are most affected, followed by low-income students and those with disabilities.

"Even though it's an improvement, I'd say the house is on fire," one board member said, referring to New Jersey's lower absenteeism rates compared with other states. "If students are not there, you can't teach them."

"Think of this as one data point. Think of it as the tip of the iceberg," Ehling said. "We've developed guidance that allows districts to look at their data to identify what are their root causes. We've learned that it's very different for each school, each district."

Schools with 10% or higher absenteeism must submit corrective action plans to the state, she said.

The number of students reporting anxiety and depression is "still alarmingly high" Ehling said, noting the strong connection between mental health and absenteeism in New Jersey and other states. "We are concerned as well," she said, adding that the state is diving into these numbers to address the issue and help districts.

The danger of using remaining COVID relief funds to address this issue is that once the money goes away, you no longer have it, said board member Fatimah Burnam-Watkins. Some students became severely disaffected during the pandemic, especially in communities that experienced drastic trauma.

"Some districts you have to bring the support to the school," she said. "We have to urge the districts to be very holistic and extremely diligent. The 16.1% is not just going to go away."

"We are taking this very, very seriously," said Kevin Dehmer, newly appointed acting state education commissioner. "We were recently down in D.C. talking to other states. They were saying their goal was to bring their numbers down to 30%, and we were very very happy to be at 16%. But we're not sitting on our hands."

Schools are required to use climate surveys to assess student and staff engagement and mood, which is another tool leaders can use to understand whether any of it contributed to absenteeism, Ehling said.

Schools have a charge: finding answers to the question of why students aren't showing up to school. It remains to be seen how well they succeed, and providing necessary supports is up to the state. Root causes could also be external, such as teacher absenteeism and disengagement, board members said. In some cases, they said, families don't support schools' efforts to engage their children.

The increase in "disciplinary removals" from schools reflects national trends, state officials said. The number of school-based mental health professionals is set to increase, with more funding coming from federal grants to target discipline and attendance, but some board members wondered whether that was enough.