Chronic absenteeism is particularly high in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, compared with elementary and middle school. For a young child to succeed and develop a strong foundation for learning, he or she must attend school regularly. U.S. Department of Education's Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Mid-Atlantic has partnered with the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) to provide support of their initiative called Go-Learn-Grow: Improving the School Attendance of New Jersey's Youngest Learners.
NJDOE and REL Mid-Atlantic created this toolkit Strategies for Improving Attendance in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten: Toolkit for Districts, Schools, and Early Childhood Providers, with simple, easy-to-use resources and handouts to support districts, schools, and early childhood providers in improving school attendance in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. The goals of these materials are to:
- Help educators and families understand the importance of attendance in the early grades
- Encourage schools to gather and include data on preschool students when reporting chronic absenteeism rates on school report cards
- Help schools collect information from families to help identify reasons for absenteeism in the early grades
- Provide guidance on selecting and implementing research-based strategies to improve attendance in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, based on the identified challenges
