Trenton schools outline corrective-action plan as chronic absenteeism spikes across grades

Assistant Superintendent Hope Grant told the Trenton Board of Education on March 23 that the district’s Student Attendance Corrective Action Plan is a statutory response to rising chronic absenteeism and described what the district is doing to reverse the trend. The state defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of school days; Grant said every school in the district met that threshold and that the district must implement a CAP when that happens.

Grant said district data from 2023–24 to 2024–25 showed broad increases: chronic absenteeism for Black/African American students rose from 38.9% to 43.0%; Hispanic students from 31.5% to 41.4%; students with disabilities from 36.5% to 45.2%; and notable increases by grade (for example, eighth grade rose from 43.2% to 52.2%). High-school grades showed one-year chronic rates above 50% in the 2024–25 year. She emphasized that the measure is cumulative—students who miss 18 or more days in a year count as chronically absent.

The…