What’s New?

NJ working to combat chronic absenteeism in schools

Posted on November 17, 2015

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Download the report Showing Up Matters: The State of Chronic Absenteeism in NJ.

This fall ACNJ released a report highlighting school districts with 10% or more of their students chronically absent.   The response has been overwhelmingly positive, bringing to the spotlight the problem.  As a result, we are happy to report that Sen. Diane Allen has introduced a bill to address chronic absenteeism in schools!

The bill would require the state Department of Education to report data for every school on chronic absenteeism as well as suspensions, and directs schools with high rates to identify and address the issues that lead to chronic absenteeism.

Read more about the bill on NJ Spotlight.

Learn about chronic absenteeism in NJ.

View districts with high chronic absenteeism rates by county.

Urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Summer Meals Act

Posted on October 28, 2015

Decisions are being made right now that will impact anti-hunger programs, including the Summer Meals Act, which will make it easier for school and cities to feed children in the summer months, when they are not receiving school meals.

Urge your Congressional representative to support this critical act.

The Summer Meals Act is the only bill that improves and specifically invests in out-of-school time meal sites, providing critical support to afterschool and summer providers who run programs that offer both healthy food and enrichment activities. This investment is essential to ensuring that low-income children get the nutrition they need when school is out, and also can access learning and enrichment activities offered at the sites.

Get social with them.

Research shows that 30 or fewer social media posts about the same topic are likely to get the attention of a Member of Congress, but they need to be posted quickly or they may not be seen. We’ve made it really easy. Just click the link below and you can easily share our tweets.

Click to tweet!

Keep the momentum going! Urge your Member of Congress to co-sponsor the Summer Meals Act.

Forum aims to end “school to prison” pipeline

Posted on October 21, 2015

2015_10_15_JuvenileJusticeForumOver 350 members of the law enforcement, education and court communities convened on Oct. 20, 2015 to identify ways they can work together to prevent school discipline issues from landing youth in court and in the juvenile justice system.

Research has shown that calling in law enforcement to deal with a student’s behavioral problems is an ineffective way to address these issues and could lead to harmful, long-term consequences not anticipated by educators.

Read press release of the event.

Click here to find forum presentations and materials.

ACNJ releases 5th Annual School Breakfast report

Posted on October 15, 2015

2015_10_15_School_Breakfast_Report_CoverA growing number of New Jersey schools are serving breakfast during the first few minutes of the day and, as a result, have achieved a 75 percent increase in the number of low-income students eating this all-important morning meal, according to the 5th Annual NJ School Breakfast Report, released today by Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) and the NJ Food for Thought Campaign.

Read the news release.

Download the report.

View District level data.