Address Attendance During Transition Activities Inspiring Examples
Earl Boyles Elementary School serves 560 children from preschool through 5th grade in an intensely diverse (28 countries) and multilingual (30 languages) low-income community of Portland, Oregon. The preschool program includes three double session, half-day classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds. Earl Boyles has three full-day kindergarten classrooms.
Transition activities for preschoolers include visits to kindergarten classrooms and cafeterias and visits from kindergarten teachers to the preschool classroom throughout the year. This allows teachers and children to become familiar with one another and with the routines of preschool and kindergarten. In addition, the school offers a 2-week summer transition program for children who have not attended preschool or children who could benefit from additional support.
Attention to attendance is an integral part of the Earl Boyle program and is emphasized in preschool, the transition programs and throughout the year. Attendance is monitored weekly, teachers reach out to parents when absences hit 10 percent, and good attendance and improvement are celebrated monthly throughout the year in all grades from preschool forward. Attendance information for individual students is part of the transition information and follows each child from preschool into kindergarten. See Earl Boyle’s website for more background.
Corona-Norco School District operates a parent center program called “Little Scholars.” The 5-week, once-a-week, 90-minute parent-child program is offered in both Spanish and English during the spring and fall for families with 4- and 5-year-olds. The program recruits families with children who are not enrolled in preschool. It provides learning activities for the children while offering parenting workshops for families as well as two-generation activities. Little Scholars activities are designed to reduce the social and emotional tensions associated with the transition to kindergarten among children who have not had preschool. The program’s parent activities help families understand the value of early education and the importance of avoiding unnecessary absences.
Early Kindergarten Transition (EKT) is a 3-week free summer program at elementary schools in Portland Public Schools (PPS) for families with children entering kindergarten. The program’s three goals are to increase parental involvement in their child's learning, reduce chronic absenteeism in kindergarten and promote children's success in school.
Children attend school every morning for three weeks in the summer to meet teachers, make new friends, and become familiar with kindergarten skills, routines and expectations. Families gather twice a week to meet school staff and discuss ways to support their child's learning. Hands-on attendance activities at each caregiver session allow adults to identify a common issue like bedtime routines and discuss and role play strategies with each other. Adults are assigned “homework” and are asked to try the new strategies at home and then discuss what worked and what didn’t at the next session. Interpreters and meals are provided, and the program provides childcare during parent meeting times.
Registration is offered in late spring for parents of children who will attend kindergarten at one of the schools offering the program. Twelve elementary schools offered the program in 2018. The results of a recent 5-year longitudinal study documented improved attendance and improved literacy outcomes for children who participated in EKT. For more information, see the PPS Early Kindergarten Transition Website, an Education Week article on the program, and PPS’ Research Brief on EKT
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