Manchester Township School District staff presented school-specific corrective action plans at the board meeting after describing the state’s chronic-absence threshold and the district’s response.

An unidentified presenter explained that New Jersey requires schools with more than 10% chronic absenteeism to create corrective action plans. The presenter read the definition used by the state: ‘‘chronic absenteeism is defined by the state as any student who misses 10% or more of school, which in 180 school days, is a student misses 18 days,’’ and said the district is posting plans and supporting materials on the meeting agenda.

The presentation described a three-tier framework: Tier 1 includes schoolwide efforts to promote attendance (for example, positive school culture, breakfast programs, daily attendance postings and the HERO ‘‘ready and on time’’ program); Tier 2 involves targeted supports such as parent letters, counselor and Child Study Team (CST) involvement, attendance committees and tools like Google forms to let students report barriers; Tier 3 focuses on intensive wraparound services, attendance contracts, truancy paperwork and, in high schools, potential credit-denial policies and academic make-up hours that must be demonstrably academic.

The presenter said the district reviewed data from 2022–23 through 2024–25 and reported that chronic-absence rates are ‘‘trending down’’ overall. School-specific examples included use of parent postcards, nurse involvement for medical barriers, mentoring programs, and special procedures for the Regional Day School where students are in a send/receive relationship and transportation can complicate attendance tracking.

District staff cited external resources including the New Jersey Department of Education student attendance page and Attendance Works. The presenter invited administrators to answer specific questions about individual building plans and emphasized that the corrective action plans are statutory requirements with the goal of improving learning by increasing in-seat time.