For teenagers like Nidhi Das, social media became a cherished lifeline to friends during the pandemic’s early days.

But as regular life resumed, Das didn’t like how tethered she felt to it. Social media became her go-to boredom buster, and even the misinformation that infects many platforms kept her swiping.

“The algorithm, it curates to what you like. And people would make up little controversies, so that might encourage you, like ‘oh, let me look into that.’ Even if it’s not true, I still want to know like: ‘Oh, where did that stem from?’” said Das, 17, a high school senior from Lawrenceville. “The addicting thing is that there’s always something endlessly there, so you keep scrolling.”

That’s why several New Jersey lawmakers recently introduced  to crack down on social media platforms that use habit-forming features that entice underage users to develop social media addictions. Violators would face up to $250,000 in fines unless they remove the addictive features from their products. The bill applies only to companies that earned more than $100 million in gross revenue the preceding year and video game platforms.

Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. (D-Burlington) said the congressional testimony of Facebook whistleblower  inspired him to introduce the bill in January, as well as several other bills intended to protect children from social media. Haughen testified that Facebook algorithms deliberately suck children in and can be especially toxic to teen girls.

“Facebook really is making a commodity out of the human mind,” Conaway said. “Unfortunately, far too many people in the business of selling things are perfectly willing to engage in behavior and practices that cause a lot of harm if it means they’re going to make a lot of money. And that’s where government has to step in and say that we have a responsibility to protect the public.”

Just as smoking, substance use, and a failure to use seatbelts drove lawmakers to pass laws, social media addiction is a public health threat that requires legislative action, he added.

“These social media platforms sit in a regulatory, statutory void,” Conaway said.

Conaway introduced a  in January that would establish a commission to study the effects on adolescents of smartphone and social media usage in school and  in December intended to protect the privacy of underage social media users.

The latter bill also aims to prevent addiction by requiring a “data protection impact assessment” in which social media companies would have to reveal if they use features — like auto-play videos, rewards for time spent, and notifications — intended to keep users online longer.

Several other Assembly Democrats have signed on as prime sponsors of the bills, including Shanique Speight of Essex County, Dan Benson of Mercer County, and Carol Murphy of Burlington County.

A national fight

Conaway and his colleagues are far from the first lawmakers to try to break social media’s stranglehold on youth nationally. This kind of legislation is popping up in statehouses around the country.

Maryland lawmakers earlier this month introduced  that would restrict data collection and profiling of children, mandate high-privacy settings by default, and restrict geolocation. Last year, Minnesota lawmakers considered but failed to pass  that would have prohibited platforms from using recommendation algorithms for underage users. And a bill in California would have allowed parents to sue social media companies for addicting their kids, but it also 

Social media addiction has driven federal policymakers to act too.

In Congress, a  would have increased parental controls of screen time, auto-play, and privacy, and it would have required social media companies to reveal how they use algorithms and targeted advertising with their underage users. That bill, introduced last year, also failed. Even the U.S. Supreme Court is  with two cases on their schedule this week that seek to hold Google and Twitter liable for what their algorithms promote or suggest.

The industry has lobbied against the bills wherever they arise.

But Conaway isn’t cowed. Anyone skeptical of the need for legislative intervention should consider social media’s  on adolescents and its role in bullying, Conaway said, citing the  whose classmates attacked her and posted videos on social media afterward.

“This is not our first rodeo,” Conaway said. “We have to try to forge ahead, even in the face of opposition that’s going to come from outside the Legislature, but I imagine also within the Legislature. I’m hoping that a number of my colleagues will recognize the danger as I do, and we can get this legislation moving on to the governor’s desk.”

Some aren’t waiting for lawmakers to act.

In Morris County, the School District of the Chathams filed  against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Google, and YouTube last week, saying the platforms fueled students’ addiction and mental health struggles through “manipulative” business practices.

District officials want a judge to declare social media a public nuisance and are seeking unspecified damages to recover rising costs, including hiring more counselors to help students and disciplinary staff to handle online harassment, threats, and bullying.

“These severe mental health consequences have placed severe burdens on society and, in particular, schools. It cannot be stated strongly enough that social media has drastically changed the high school and middle school experience of students across the nation,” the lawsuit alleges.

As for Das, she eventually pulled the plug herself: her only lingering indulgence is just an occasional scroll through TikTok.

“I used to have all the social media, like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter — all of it,” she said. “But I realized that there was not a lot of substance to it. It was all so repetitive.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

After three years of challenges caused or aggravated by the pandemic — closed schools, staffing shortages, students with burnout — New Jersey lawmakers are taking a closer look at whether high schoolers should pass an exam to graduate.

New Jersey is one of 11 states that require students to pass a standardized test in 11th grade in order to get their diploma. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law , and now some lawmakers want to make that a permanent move.

“No way should this test be on the books for 2024, because we still haven’t resolved the issues that our students have gone through in 2021, 2022, and 2023,” said Assemblyman Ralph Caputo, (D-Essex) sponsor of a  to eliminate the requirement.

For nearly two hours Thursday, the Assembly Education Committee heard testimony from dozens of parents, school officials, and students who argued the state should not require 11th graders to pass a standardized test to graduate. Education advocates say students of color, students who speak English as a second language, and students with disabilities struggle with testing and tend to score much lower than their peers.

Jamil Maroun, superintendent of Manville Public Schools, where 47% of students are bilingual and 35% speak Spanish as their primary language at home, said standardized tests reveal the inequities between schools. The assessments are discriminatory against students from certain socio-economic backgrounds and students who speak other languages, he said.

The tests, he added, are designed for some students to fail and are a “barrier” hurting students.

“I would agree that we need to provide some sort of measure, but shouldn’t we ensure that that measure truly measures the quality of the educational programs that the students are receiving, not the wealth and poverty that they’re coming from? This is an equity issue,” he said.

In December, state education officials released results for the graduation exam that showed 39% of juniors who took the language arts test were ready to graduate, and 50% passed the math portion.

Caputo said the test adds to student and teacher stress, driving mental health concerns that have worsened during the pandemic. Nicole Asamaro, a Jersey City teacher who has a daughter with ADHD and anxiety disorders, said she’s seen her daughter panic over tests that don’t reflect whether she’s a good student.

“Even when she studies, she still somehow manages to fail. The teachers can’t understand why she fails when they know she knows the material … She will leave her test papers completely blank because her anxiety overcomes her ability to perform well on exams,” said Asamaro.

Asamaro works with Save Our Schools New Jersey, which advocates for fewer standardized tests in schools and other education policies.

As an educator working with students who have autism, she added, she prefers using assessments where students demonstrate what they can do rather than race to circle multiple-choice answers during a timed test.

The current form of the test is known as the New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment, but it’s been previously known as NJSLA, NJTPA, PARCC, or NJASK. The requirement comes from a  that mandates the testing requirement.

The testing requirement was waived in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years as well due to the pandemic.

The 2022 law Murphy signed allowed the assessment to be used as a field test, the year the newest version of the test was first administered. The State Board of Education the Graduation Proficiency Assessment for 11th graders through at least the class of 2025.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

An appellate panel last week ruled that public university students whose in-person instruction was upturned by school pandemic rules aren’t entitled to a refund.

The  affirms a trial court ruling that found the two universities in question did not have to partially refund tuition to students because in-person instruction went remote in March 2020. The judges ruled that New Jersey’s Emergency Health Powers Act insulates the schools from liability and does not violate the state or federal constitutions.

“Immunizing public entities from liability related to their actions in a statewide public health emergency is a key part of the legislative scheme, as it allows these entities to act quickly, efficiently, and fully to prepare for and react to such circumstances without fear of litigation consequences,” the decision reads.

In separate cases, students from Kean University and Montclair State University alleged the move to remote schooling constituted a breach of contract, claiming they were denied the education their tuition paid for.

They said the online classes provided them with a worse education and, in some cases, deprived students of access to necessary equipment.

The plaintiffs noted that online classes both universities offered pre-pandemic carried lower tuition.

Both universities issued refunds for housing and dining fees after going remote but kept tuition payments and other fees, including some related to on-campus facilities.

“Notably, plaintiffs do not contend the actions taken by Kean or Montclair in transitioning to total online instruction were unreasonable or unnecessary,” the ruling reads.

Gov. Phil Murphy directed universities to stop in-person instruction in an executive order issued on March 16, 2020. Both universities resumed offering in-person classes in the fall 2021 semester.

It’s not clear whether the plaintiffs will petition the New Jersey Supreme Court for an appeal.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

New Jersey legislators are making a bipartisan push to teach teenagers how to cope with grief.

Sens. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) and Joe Cryan (D-Union) joined advocates and bereaved parents and children Friday to urge support for a bill that would require high school and certain middle school students to be taught how to spot and handle grief.

“There are 142,000 young people in this state that have lost a parent. Digest that for a moment — 142,000,” Cryan said during a press conference in Mountainside. “The extraordinary things they go through and the grief that they go through, the emotions they encounter, how they handle it, what reactions they have … all those things matter. The educational process in our schools can make a difference.”

The bill leaves specifics on the high school grief curriculum to districts and the state commissioner of education, who would be responsible for providing sample learning activities and other resources to districts. Bramnick said any materials would be drafted with input from stakeholders, including the bereaved.

At minimum, the grief curriculum must teach students about symptoms of grief, coping mechanisms to handle it, and resources like in-school counseling and therapy.

Under the current system, children and teenagers may find little assistance in dealing with a lost loved one.

That was the case for Diana Creaser, a senior at Montclair High School whose mother died in May after a years-long fight with colon cancer. When she returned to school after her mother’s death, Creaser was still in the throes of grief, but no one at school seemed concerned.

“I never felt more alone,” she said. “Not a single counselor or teacher met with me after this troubling time, and on my first day of classes, instead of being showered with condolences, I was ignored and told to immediately create a plan for how I would make up my missed work.”

School counselors already help students process grief in some districts, as they did for 9-year-old Ava Quezada, whose 5-year-old brother died roughly five months ago.

Elizabeth King-Quezada, her mother and a social worker, said a school counselor helped her daughter while she struggled with her own grief — but counselors are few in number relative to the student body, King-Quezada noted.

“Whoever I’m trusting my grieving child with, I want them to be able to know how to deal with her, how to deal with her emotions, how to know when something might have triggered, as her teacher is on top of and able to do,” King-Quezada said. “But this should not be just her teacher. This should be all teachers all across the state.”

Ava and her mother said they believe grief should be part of school curricula from kindergarten on. Ava’s younger cousins don’t even know what grief is, she said.

“They could think it’s a tree or a plant or some kind of flower. They wouldn’t know what it was because they don’t learn about it in school,” she said.

Bramnick said the bill’s initial draft would have required grief instruction for students from first grade onward, but said he ultimately left out the lower grades to limit opposition the bill could receive. As written, it would require lessons on grief for students in health classes from eighth through 12th grades.

“I felt as if I better crawl before I walk,” Bramnick said, adding he aims to fast-track the legislation.

Mental health issues among youth soared during the pandemic and have yet to fall back to pre-COVID levels. The American Psychological Association raised alarms over youth mental health in January, noting rises in emergency department visits for mental health involving children and teens in 2020.

Bramnick said the pandemic may have played a role in the bill’s drafting but credited Mountainside nonprofit Imagine for its introduction. Imagine helps bereaved children and families process grief and hosted Friday’s press conference at its office.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

Clarence Payte says his path to education was disrupted by housing insecurity and taking on family responsibilities at a young age.

After experiencing homelessness and seeing his mother incarcerated — leaving him to care for his three siblings and move in with his aunt — he couldn’t finish traditional high school.

“I felt like I was being punished for being poor,” he said at a Senate Education Committee hearing Thursday.

Payte lives in Trenton, where dozens of students drop out of high school annually (77 in the 2020-21 school year). He urged lawmakers to advance a measure () that would create a task force and office within the Department of Education to study and prevent student dropout.

After hearing several stories like Payte’s, the legislation passed with bipartisan support and now moves to the Senate Budget Committee for consideration. Payte said it was “a great first step for New Jersey to better understand the variety of young people’s experiences outside of school that impacts their attendance.”

For the last three full school years, New Jersey’s statewide dropout rate has hovered around 1%, according to state education data. The National Center for Education Statistics says the national rate was 5% in 2020.

But some individual districts struggle with higher-than-average dropout rates. In the 2018-19 school year — before COVID-19 disrupted schooling statewide — Atlantic City High School had a 4.7% dropout rate, Plainfield High School’s was 5.1%, and in Trenton, the dropout rate was 5.5%.

The state is home to more than 580 school districts.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), would require the new office to work with school districts to create a statewide plan with recommendations to address dropout rates. It would also be tasked with developing programs to help students at risk of dropping out.

The task force would focus on analyzing why students leave school before graduation, finding best practices for reducing the dropout rate, and devising programs to increase re-enrollment. It would also examine age, ethnicity, gender, household income, cultural or language barriers, and family dynamics as potential dropout factors.

The 17-member task force would comprise school and legislative officials to try to capture representation from all areas of the state. It would include the state corrections and education commissioners, plus one Democrat and one Republican each from the Senate and the Assembly.

The governor would appoint 11 members: three superintendents of schools representing urban, suburban, and rural districts; two members of the public with expertise in studying and preventing dropouts; two county college presidents; and a principal, a guidance counselor, and two teachers from urban districts with high dropout rates.

Tasmeya Hall is a job developer at nonprofit United Community Corporation and YouthBuild Newark, which helps young people get their high school equivalency diploma while doing on-the-job training. Hall said the legislation is needed to address why students may be disconnected in schools.

The dropout rate in Newark was more than 5% in 2018-19, representing nearly 500 students.

Hall said dropouts are not limited to a single geographic region or ethnic group. She cited Cumberland County, where 23% of people aged 16 to 24 are not in school or working, and nearly 20% of adults over age 25 do not have a high school diploma. In Essex County, she said, 14% of adults over the age of 25 do not have a high school diploma.

Students who are exposed to trauma or adverse childhood experiences are more likely to be disconnected from school, she said, and more than 50% of people currently studying at YouthBuild have experienced more than three instances of childhood trauma.

“In order to prevent young people throughout New Jersey, regardless of zip code or racial/ethnic groups, from experiencing the detrimental impact of disconnection, we need to take action,” she said.

Chris Emigholz of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association also supports the bill, pointing to the current “workforce crisis.” He said the state should work to connect with students who dropped out years ago and find ways to get them on a career path, whether that’s county college, vocational high school, or an apprenticeship.

“Saving them is a way to generate the great workforce that we need,” he said.

Nine months after the task force is appointed, it would be required to issue a report with findings and recommendations to the governor and the Legislature. The bill says the task force should be formed “as soon as practicable.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .