Correction (July 21, 2026): The current enrollment package reports 133 Ocean Gate students in 2024, not 149. Keansburg enrolled 1,525 students, so the four districts are no longer described uniformly as small. This version also removes a false claim that Ocean County's district mean exceeded the state every reported year and removes socioeconomic, seasonal-economy, school-closure, funding, causal and predictive explanations the attendance file cannot verify.

New Jersey's statewide chronic-absence rate fell from 18.1% in 2022 to 16.6% in 2023 and 14.9% in 2024. Four districts in Ocean and Monmouth counties nevertheless remained above 30% in 2024: Ocean Gate^↗ET at 43.0%, Seaside Heights^↗ET at 39.1%, Keansburg^↗ET at 33.8% and Neptune City^↗ET at 30.8%.

The matching 2024 enrollment rows report 133 students in Ocean Gate, 177 in Seaside Heights, 1,525 in Keansburg and 280 in Neptune City.

All four remained above 2019

Ocean Gate increased from 7.0% in 2019 to 43.0% in 2024, a 36.0-point change and a 6.1-times ratio. It was the largest 2019-2024 increase among districts with both rates in the package.

Seaside Heights increased from 16.1% to 39.1%, a 23.0-point change. Neptune City increased from 17.1% to 30.8%, a 13.7-point change. Keansburg increased from 24.3% to 33.8%, a 9.5-point change.

Their paths differed. Ocean Gate and Keansburg increased in each annual transition from 2021 through 2024. Seaside Heights fell 14.1 points in 2022 before increasing in 2023 and 2024. Neptune City fell 4.4 points in 2023 before increasing 7.8 points in 2024.

County district means diverged

The package assigns Ocean Gate and Seaside Heights to Ocean County and Keansburg and Neptune City to Monmouth County. In 2024, 35 of 84 district rows across those counties were above the 14.9% state rate, or 41.7%.

The unweighted mean across Ocean County district rows was 18.0% in 2024. The Monmouth County district mean was 12.2%. These are means of district rates, not student-weighted county rates.

Two focus districts were in the worsening-streak group

Statewide, 44 districts with complete 2021-2024 rows increased in all three annual transitions. Ocean Gate had the highest 2024 rate in that group at 43.0%; Keansburg was second at 33.8%.

Across the broader matched 2019-2024 panel, 78 districts had a 2024 rate no higher than their 2019 rate. The four focus districts were not among them.

The state and focus-district changes

The statewide rate increased 4.3 points from 10.6% in 2019 to 14.9% in 2024, even after two annual declines from its 2022 peak. Each focus district increased more than the state over the same endpoints.

The package documents rates, locations and enrollment; it does not establish how poverty, housing, employment, district size, funding, attendance programs or school closure affected those values.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.