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More than one in three students in Paterson Public Schools were chronically absent during the 2025–26 school year, district officials have reported — a stark figure that has pushed one of New Jersey’s largest school districts to overhaul how it tracks and responds to student attendance.
According to reporting by Gabriella Dragone for TAPInto Paterson, published October 23, 2026, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate stood at 36.02% for the previous school year. The number was presented by Cheryl Coy, Assistant Superintendent of Special Education, who said the district is aiming to reduce that rate by at least 2.5% — with officials hoping to achieve an even larger improvement.
The 36.02 Percent Figure: What Paterson Reported
The headline number is blunt: 36.02% of Paterson students were chronically absent last school year. Put another way, more than one-third — more than one in three — of the district’s students missed enough school to fall into the chronically absent category.
Coy told district officials that the administration had deliberately cast a wide net when pulling the numbers. “The goal was to capture any student who had not shown up, any student who showed up and then stopped coming,” she said.
She also shared a story that illustrates why the early weeks of school matter so much. In one case, a father believed his daughter was attending because he dropped her off each morning — but staff discovered she had not been entering the building. When staff told the parent, “Your child hasn’t been in school in two weeks,” the student returned to school the following day.
What Counts as Chronic Absenteeism
In Paterson, as in most U.S. school districts, a student is considered chronically absent after missing at least 10% of the school year — for any reason, excused or unexcused. On a standard 180-day school calendar, that threshold works out to roughly 18 days, or about two days a month.
Chronic absenteeism is different from truancy. Truancy typically counts only unexcused absences, while chronic absenteeism captures total time out of the classroom — which is why researchers treat it as the stronger predictor of falling behind academically. If you want to see how the math works, our free attendance percentage calculator lets you convert days present and days absent into an attendance rate in seconds.
Why Paterson Students Are Missing School
District officials did not blame the numbers on a single cause. Instead, Coy described school attendance committees tasked with finding out why individual students are missing school — and connecting families with help when transportation, housing, emotional difficulties, or other challenges interfere with attendance.
That framing matters. When a family loses housing, when a bus route falls through, or when a student is struggling emotionally, the absences that follow are symptoms — and the district’s stated approach is to treat the underlying problem rather than simply logging the absence.
The District’s Seven-Part Response
What makes this story more than a grim statistic is what comes next. Rather than treating the 36.02 per cent figure as the end of the conversation, district officials used it as the launchpad for a set of changes to how Paterson handles attendance. Here is what they outlined.
1. Start early. Instead of waiting until a student has accumulated weeks or months of absences, the district is examining attendance records at the start of the school year — catching problems before they compound.
2. A dedicated attendance team. A four-member attendance team is reviewing records across the district in the opening weeks of school and coordinating with school staff to contact families of students who have not shown up.
3. School-level attendance committees. Each school’s attendance committee reviews students at risk of becoming chronically absent, investigates the reasons behind the absences, and links families to assistance.
4. Expanded parent communication. The district is stepping up outreach to parents and guardians through automated phone calls, text messages, and emails — with additional direct calls from staff if attendance problems continue.
5. Parent workshops. Workshops and attendance awareness activities are designed to help families understand why every school day counts.
6. Community partnerships. The district is working with community organizations to address problems — from housing instability to transportation gaps — that schools cannot solve alone.
7. Ongoing data review. Officials will continue reviewing attendance information throughout the school year to determine whether the new efforts are actually moving the needle on absenteeism.
What Happens Next
The district’s stated goal is to cut the chronic absenteeism rate by at least 2.5 percentage points — which would bring it down from 36.02% toward roughly 33.5% — though officials said they hope to do better than that. Whether the seven-part plan delivers will become clear as attendance data accumulates through the 2026–27 school year.
For now, Paterson’s experience is a reminder of a simple truth behind the statistics: attendance is the foundation everything else in school is built on, and the earlier a district notices a student slipping away, the better its chances of bringing them back.
Calculate Your School’s Attendance Rate
Chronic absenteeism starts with the numbers. If you’re a parent, teacher, or administrator who wants to track attendance — for one student, a classroom, or a whole school — try our free attendance percentage calculator. Enter days present and total school days to get an instant attendance rate, and see how close a student is to the 10% chronic-absence threshold. You can also browse more explainers on our blog.
