To fight attendance woes, Camden students are taking a daily pledge to attend school

Camden public school students will now be starting the school day with a new pledge: to attend school regularly.

Superintendent Katrina McCombs said the daily pledge is a basic but necessary campaign in a school system plagued for years by poor attendance and failing test scores. She hopes to boost daily attendance to 90%, up from the 2021-22 school year’s rate of 81%.

“It’s pretty simple — if our students aren’t in school, they’re not going to be able to excel,” she said.

McCombs launched the district-wide attendance campaign at a pep rally Wednesday at the H.B. Wilson Family School with hundreds of screaming students packed in the auditorium. She asked students, teachers and parents to support the “Attend today, Achieve tomorrow” campaign.

For the 2021-2022 school year, about 67% of Camden’s 6,900 traditional school students were chronically absent, according to the latest annual New Jersey School Performance Report. The state average among the state’s more than 600 districts is 18.1%.

Absenteeism was highest among preschoolers, kindergartners, and high school freshmen, the latest available state report found. The state took over the district in 2013 after years of poor student performance, which includes attendance measures.

Camden was among the last districts in the region to fully reopen its schools after the pandemic and has struggled to get students back in school, McCombs said. Some students have expressed difficulty sitting in class for a full day after remote learning.

“We know we have much more work to do,” she said.

As part of the district-wide attendance campaign, students signed an attendance pledge that will be posted on bulletin boards and recited daily during homeroom, the superintendent said. There will be incentives during the year to encourage good attendance, she said.

Eighth grade honor student Ja’Sool Clark, 13, plans to again repeat his excellent attendance streak.

“I come to school most of the time,” he said. “I only don’t come when I’m sick.”

Samya Pagan, 13, an eighth-grader at H.B. Wilson, said she plans to have perfect attendance. She said she missed a few days last year, mainly because she was exposed to others who tested positive for COVID-19.

“I didn’t get to get perfect attendance but I’m going to get it this year,” Pagan, an aspiring cosmetologist entrepreneur, said with a big smile. “I love school!”

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Attendance officer Pamela Clark said students may miss school for numerous reasons. They may be homeless or displaced, lack transportation, uniforms or clean clothing, or their parents may need day care before or after school. Some students have their own children and have difficulty with child care, she said.

After a student has five unexcused absences, Clark calls the parents. She makes a home visit after 10 days to try to learn why the student is absent and offer resources such as uniform or laundry vouchers to get students back in school.

“Most of the the time, parents are then compliant,” Clark said. “Every parent’s story is different.”

H.B. Wilson Principal Nicole Harrigan welcomed the attendance campaign for her school, which has about 500 K-8 students. Before the pandemic, average daily attendance in Camden, a state-run school system, was about 92%.

“The kids need to be cheered on,” said Harrigan. “It’s been a struggle to get kids excited to be back in school.”

McCombs and school officials were joined at the rally by 76ers forward Danuel House Jr. and team mascot Franklin, who ran around the auditorium, zipping down aisles and whipping the students into a frenzy. A drum line marched to the stage. One girl was so excited that she began to cry.

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House urged the students to apply the same standards he uses in his NBA career to their education: discipline, dedication, patience, and work ethic. Many students and teachers wore 76ers jerseys and waved handmade posters.

“You have to get up early and get here to school,” House said. He later tossed free T-shirts and helped distribute gift cards to purchase school supplies.