While the state's largest school district is reporting real progress in tackling a long-standing challenge, chronic absenteeism.

After years of struggling with high numbers of Newark students missing school regularly, new data shows a sharp drop in absentee rates across the district.

As Raven Santana reports, school officials are crediting a mix of new programs for driving the turnaround.

Three years ago, Newark schools were struggling with students' attendance.

A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the school year.

That's about 18 days out of 180.

The average daily attendance was, um, relatively low.

It was in, um, the late 80 in terms of percent.

Um, and our chronic absenteeism was around 29%.

Um, typically the state, uh, chronic absenteeism is somewhere around 18%.

Since then newer casting dramatic improvement, chronic absenteeism fell from 18.1% two years ago to 14.9% last year.

And this school year, the district reports the number dropped again to just over 10% while overall attendance climbed above 95%.

The following year we were able to cut that in half to 13% and recently we in the most recent year set 10.4%.

District leaders say the progress isn't by chance it's the result of intentional changes in policy and practice.

The original policy in the district which the board unanimously voted to change was that you wait four days before you actually make contact with parents about why their Children were late.

And so the policy change says on the first absence, we call the parent.

Hey, how are you?

Your child's not in school.

What's going on?

That personal approach is paying off.

Last year, 44 of Newark's 64 schools had attendance rates above 95 percent, with all schools surpassing 90 percent.

It's a really, really good sign of some strong attendance numbers that are indicative of why the chronic absenteeism rate is so low.

Officials say stronger attendance is directly linked to better academic results.

Students who come to school do far better than students who are absent.

So it's having a profound impact.

Our graduation rate is at the highest it's ever been.

Student achievement both in English language arts and in mathematics has increased.

We're almost at a point where we'll be able to say that all grades have actually recovered from meaning that they have increased student achievement beyond pre-pandemic numbers.

And for families balancing responsibilities outside of school, Newark has built in more flexibility.

If, you know, parents have to make adjustments because they have personal responsibilities, a child has to go to the doctor, a child has to do these other things, they have someone not just through their atte but also through our give they have a staff member t systematic community driv approach in what we're do here to be very intentional about the results that we are now seeing.

Every parent realizes deep down that school is important, but I think that there are barriers to attendance for many children in New Jersey, and parents don't know where to turn to to help their children kind of cross those barriers and in order to be able to learn.

I think that's the issue.

But while Newark's numbers are improving, advocates say chronic absenteeism remains a challenge statewide.

Working with community providers who are assisting the family, I think that schools have to do a better job of communicating to parents what are the attendance rules.

What's the consequences, what I'm saying?

Well, what's the consequences of being absent for more than 10 days without having an excuse?

That's truancy.

Or what's the consequence of being absent for more than 18 days?

What does it mean even to be absent regardless of the consequences to the child's education?

I think parents need to understand that there's a big misconception about having excused absences.

Peckman says the goal now is to build on Newark's progress and expand it across the state so that every child has the support to show up and succeed.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

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