From mentorship to Nintendo Switch raffles, Bridgeport schools see drop in chronic absenteeism FacebookTwitterEmail Desks are in place at a safe social distance in a classroom of Johnson School, in Bridgeport, Conn. Aug. 27, 2020.Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media BRIDGEPORT — At the Geraldine W. Johnson School in Bridgeport, about a third of the students were repeatedly not showing up for class. It was a trend seen district-wide — with some schools seeing chronic absenteeism rates upward of 50 percent — as the pandemic shifted learning online and took kids out of the classroom. The surge was staggering for the neighborhood school, though, which serves approximately 800 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Before the pandemic closed school buildings last spring, Principal Luisa Wolf said just 9 percent of students were chronically absent.