The Jersey Shore's Attendance Crisis: Four Small Districts Are Getting Worse Every Year

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

New Jersey's chronic absenteeism rate has fallen for two consecutive years, from 18.1% in 2021-22 to 14.9% in 2023-24. The state ranks second-lowest nationally. And in a cluster of small shore communities along Ocean and Monmouth counties, the numbers are moving in the opposite direction.

Ocean Gate^↗, a barrier island borough in Ocean County with a single elementary school and 149 students, posted a 43% chronic absenteeism rate in 2023-24. Before the pandemic, it was 7%. That is not a misprint. Nearly half the students in the district missed at least 18 school days.

A sixfold increase in five years

Ocean Gate's trajectory is the most extreme in the state. Its rate climbed from 7.0% in 2018-19 to 20.3% in 2020-21, then kept climbing: 22.6%, 32.7%, 43.0%. Every single year since the pandemic, the rate has increased. No other district in New Jersey has seen chronic absenteeism rise by 36 percentage points in five years.

It is not alone. Three other small districts along the shore have also seen their rates climb far above their pre-COVID baselines, even as the state average dropped:

Seaside Heights^↗: 16.1% (2019) to 39.1% (2024) — a 23 percentage point increase
Keansburg^↗: 24.3% to 33.8% — a 9.5 point increase, worsening every year since 2021
Neptune City^↗: 17.1% to 30.8% — a 13.7 point increase

All four districts now have chronic absenteeism rates above 30%. The statewide rate is 14.9%.

Different patterns, same destination

The four districts did not get here the same way.

Ocean Gate and Keansburg have been on unbroken worsening streaks since 2020-21, their rates increasing every year for three consecutive years. Seaside Heights spiked to 49.7% in 2020-21 — the highest rate of any district that year — then dropped to 35.6% the following year before climbing again to 39.1%. Neptune City actually improved in 2020-21, dipping to 15.0%, then surged to 27.4% the next year, fell back to 23.0%, and jumped again to 30.8%.

The volatility itself is a signal. These are districts with enrollment under 300 students, where a handful of families moving in or out can swing the rate by double digits. But the overall direction is unmistakable: all four are substantially worse than before the pandemic, while 78 districts statewide have fully recovered.

What the shore towns share

Ocean Gate and Seaside Heights sit in Ocean County. Keansburg and Neptune City are in Monmouth County. Together, these two counties account for 84 districts. In 2023-24, 35 of them — 42% — had chronic absenteeism rates above the state average of 14.9%.

The mean chronic rate across Ocean County districts was 18.0% in 2023-24, compared to 12.2% in Monmouth County and 14.9% statewide. Ocean County has run above the state average in every year on record.

But the four focus districts are not merely above average. They are in a different category. Seaside Heights is classified in District Factor Group "A", the lowest of New Jersey's eight socioeconomic groupings. The state reports that 92.5% of its students are economically disadvantaged. Ocean Gate is in Group "B", the second-lowest, with 55% economically disadvantaged and roughly 40% of its housing units vacant — seasonal rentals that sit empty from October through April.

These are communities built around a summer economy. When the boardwalks close, the jobs disappear. The families that stay year-round are disproportionately those without the means to leave. Housing instability, inconsistent employment, and the isolation of off-season shore towns all feed into the attendance numbers.

Not just the smallest districts

The shore attendance problem extends beyond the four worst cases. Lakehurst^↗, a small Ocean County borough, went from 14.1% in 2018-19 to 25.8% in 2023-24. Lacey Township^↗, a mid-size Ocean County district, has been on a three-year worsening streak, reaching 20.7%. Even larger shore communities show stress: Asbury Park^↗ hit 51.0% in 2020-21 — then recovered sharply to 21.9% by 2023-24, almost back to its pre-COVID rate of 22.3%.

That divergence is telling. Asbury Park, despite concentrated poverty and a chronic rate more than double the state average, managed to cut its post-COVID spike by 29 percentage points. Ocean Gate, starting from a far lower baseline, went in the other direction. Size matters here. Asbury Park has roughly 2,000 students, a full district administrative apparatus, and access to the intervention infrastructure that New Jersey requires for high-absence districts. Ocean Gate has one school, 149 students, and a budget so strained that voters rejected a $700,000 tax increase to keep the school open. The school will close permanently at the end of the 2025-26 school year, ending a 112-year run.

Among the worst of the worst

Ocean Gate and Keansburg are among the 44 districts statewide that have gotten worse every single year from 2021-22 through 2023-24 — three straight years of increases while the state improved. Among those 44 districts, Ocean Gate's 43.0% rate is the highest.

The state requires districts with chronic rates above 10% to establish Attendance Review Teams and implement graduated intervention protocols. All four shore districts exceed that threshold by two to four times. But the mandate does not come with proportional resources, and for a district like Ocean Gate — which saw its state funding cut from $951,000 to $367,000 under the 2018 school funding formula — the gap between what is required and what is possible is wide.

The gap that won't close

The simplest way to see what has happened to these communities is to compare their current rates to where they were before the pandemic.

The state moved from 10.6% to 14.9%, a 4.3 percentage point increase. Ocean Gate moved from 7.0% to 43.0%, a 36 point increase — a sixfold multiplier. Seaside Heights more than doubled. Neptune City nearly doubled. Keansburg, which started from the highest base, added another 9.5 points.

New Jersey's attendance recovery story is real. The state rate has dropped for two straight years, and 78 districts have fully recovered. But recovery is not evenly distributed. Along the shore, in communities where seasonal economics, poverty, and small-district fragility converge, chronic absenteeism has not just failed to recover — it has settled into something that looks permanent. Ocean Gate's school will close in June. Its 149 students will be absorbed into Berkeley Township. The 43% chronic absence rate will disappear from state reports. The families, and the attendance barriers they face, will not.

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