These are the 30 most violent schools in New Jersey

TRENTON — Violence in New Jersey schools continues to rise, according to recently released state Department of Education data.

There was more recorded violence in New Jersey schools in the 2021-2022 school year than ever before. That's the latest year for which data is available.

Reported violent incidents climbed to 13,451, or a rate of 10.3 incidents per 1,000 students, an increase of nearly 9% from the most recent comparable year. The police had to be called 2,687 times that school year and students were caught bringing weapons, mostly knives, to school 1,372 times.

The increase in violence occurred even as New Jersey schools lost more than 2,700 students from the year before. Violent incidents include fights, threats, assault, sexual contact or assault, and robbery.

Violence in schools: Before and after COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the state's ability to track school data for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. There was also less in-person instruction in those years, giving students fewer opportunities to have face-to-face confrontations. The state warns against comparing these years to future or prior school years.

The most recent comparable school year would be 2018-2019. Schools in New Jersey reported 12,381 violent incidents that year. The rate of violence was 9.3 incidents per 1,000 students that year.

Looking even further back, the 2017-2018 school year saw 10,838 incidents and the year before had 8,245 recorded incidents.

The list below ranks New Jersey schools with at least 100 students based on the rate of violent incidents.

Of the top five most violent schools, two of them are charter schools. And of the top 10, half are middle schools.

Top 30 schools most violent schools in New Jersey

These are the schools in New Jersey with the highest rates of violence. The rankings are based on the annual School Performance Reports for the 2021-22 school year. New Jersey 101.5 ranked the schools based on the rate of reported violent incidents per 100 students. Schools with enrolment less than 100 are excluded.

Gallery Credit: New Jersey 101.5