Our Challenge

Identifying obstacles and barriers that prevent Trenton students from succeeding

Academic Obstacles

Trenton, New Jersey’s culturally rich capital city, is home to vibrant, fun, and exciting events like “Art All Night” and Trenton Thunder minor league baseball games. However, as a predominantly minority and low-income community, Trentonians face severe systemic injustices and challenging circumstances. Limited funding and resources, coupled with housing instability and systemic violence, has led to chronic absenteeism and failing school systems.

According to the Department of Education’s most recent NJ School Performance Summary Report in 2016-2017, of the 13,082 students enrolled in the Trenton School District, 80.5% are not meeting expectations on English state standards and nearly 100% do not meet expectations on math state standards.1 Only 70.1% of the students graduate from high school, and only 18.4% attend 4-year colleges.2 High schoolers report having a lack of hope in Trenton and feeling unsafe.3

Learning about healthy eating at The Barn at Gravity Hill

Chronic Absenteeism

Achieving their Full Academic Potential

Chronic absenteeism plays a major role in Trenton’s public school students’ ability to meet academic benchmarks. Nearly 26% of students are chronically absent, missing 10% or more days of school per year.4 According to the Trenton Superintendent’s Office, the chronic absenteeism rate rises to 36% in high schools.5 In the Trenton Board of Education’s Fall 2018 “Managing Chronic Absenteeism” workshop, the District Manager of Student Discipline and Attendance and school teachers at Trenton Central High School discussed a variety of causes of chronic absenteeism: to name just a few, needing funds to purchase bus tickets, not wanting to come to school wearing dirty clothes, having to provide care for a sick sibling, and feeling embarrassment or shame resulting from having missed classes.

Workshop panelists cited limited parent involvement as a significant contributor to student absenteeism. Another contributor is housing instability: nearly 40% of students move at least once per year, affecting their home stability and school attendance.6 According to Professor Lisa Bass, “Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds perform less well in academic environments when there is a lack of parental involvement in their child’s educative process.”7 Systemic injustices and challenging circumstances largely contribute to this “lack” as parents, who often work multiple or overnight jobs, struggle to be as involved in their children’s schooling as they wish to be.

Our challenge is to make it possible for HomeWorks Trenton scholars to achieve their full potential by supplementing their Trenton public school education with curriculum and programming that builds academic skills, instills a growth mindset and sense of empowerment and agency, and involves students in identifying and working to solve community problems. Our hope is that our scholars will positively impact the climate of their schools and become leaders who tackle community issues and systemic injustices.