Snap Shot: Absent From School

In 2013, about ten percent of K-12 students in New Jersey were deemed “chronically absent,” missing more than 18 school days.
Across the nation, an estimated 5 to 7.5 million students miss a month or more of school each year.
In poor communities, truancy rates can reach 50%.
An estimated 18 percent of school-age children live with some type of chronic illness. Of those, 58 percent routinely miss school, and ten percent are absent more than 25 percent of the school year.
In New Jersey, 30 percent the school districts account for 61 percent of the students that are chronically absent.