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Newark Public Schools’ chronic absenteeism rate hit a historic low for the 2025-26 school year, dropping to 8.5%. District leaders said on Thursday that it’s also the sharpest turnaround seen in a few years.
New Jersey’s largest school district had a decrease in chronic absenteeism from 27% in the 2018-19 school year to 10% in the 2024-25 school year, per state data. Rates improved across all student populations, with Black students and students with disabilities seeing the largest improvements, according to Rochanda Jackson, executive director of the district’s Office of Data and Research, who presented the attendance data during Thursday’s board meeting.
The improvement puts Newark ahead of the state, although the New Jersey Department of Education has not yet released chronic absenteeism rates for last school year. In the 2024-25 school year, the state’s chronic absenteeism rate was 14.4%, according to school performance reports.
During Thursday’s meeting, Co-vice President Vereliz Santana said the improved rate is ”incredible,” given that under state operation, the district was at risk of being placed on a corrective action plan because of dismal chronic absenteeism rates. During the 2016-17 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate was 29.7%, per school performance reports.
“We have demonstrated great improvements,” Superintendent Roger León said about attendance and graduation rates and other student achievement data presented on Thursday.
The numbers mark a stretch of steady improvement in Newark’s chronic absenteeism rate even as school districts across the country continue to recover post-pandemic.
León told board members at their annual retreat meeting over the weekend that a change in how New Jersey calculates chronic absenteeism helped boost those rates. Jackson, who presented Thursday’s attendance data, said the district changed the way it calculates chronic absenteeism rates to align with the state’s new rule on how it counts chronically absent students. It’s unclear how much the change influenced Newark’s rates. Per the new state rule, students need to be enrolled for at least 90 days out of 180 to be included in the count, up from 45 days.
“We did extraordinarily well this past year simply because the state of New Jersey actually changed the rules to assist more school districts in their chronic absenteeism rates, at least that is from our perspective,” said León during the August school board retreat.
Advocates for Children of New Jersey, a nonprofit that works with state and local leaders to implement education policy, says the state usually flags when a rule change affects how attendance data is compared year over year. Chronic absenteeism, defined by New Jersey as missing 10% or more of the school year.
León pointed to the gains in chronic absenteeism as a sign that his strategies are working during a Wednesday presentation of the 2026 Newark Kids Count report from Advocates for Children of New Jersey. Since 2018, when León was appointed to his role, the district has revived the attendance department previously closed during state operation, created individualized intervention plans for at-risk students, established a truancy task force, and distributed district-wide attendance updates.
The district continues to use a back-to-school campaign called “Give Me Five,” requiring district employees to call families of five students to urge them to show up for the first day of classes, León said Wednesday. The district also has launched incentive programs offering gift cards and hockey tickets to high school students who improve their attendance.
The Kids Count report, released this week, also found that homeless students were chronically absent at a rate of 25% in the 2024-25 school year, more than double the district’s 8.5% rate in the 2025-26 school year, even as León touted progress. In the 2023-24 school year, 26.4% of homeless students were chronically absent, per state school performance data.
León on Wednesday added that he’s working with the city’s reengagement center to support students who face barriers in getting back to school. The center provides local services such as school placements, access to academic enrichment programs, and modified instruction.
The district also tracks attendance through dashboards divided by school, class, grade, and individual student. Those reports are sent to district and school leaders.
Lauren Meehan, executive director of Arts Ed Newark, said during Wednesday’s Kids Count presentation that the district’s efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism correlate with its efforts to expand access to arts education.
“We know that when students have something creative to do, something exciting to do, that helps motivate them to be in that building every day,” Meehan said.
Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
