EdSource – Jane Meredith Adams
“Students who ride the school bus in the critical first year of formal education – kindergarten – are absent less often and have lower odds of being chronically absent, a key indicator of future academic success, according to a new study…It is believed to be the first to quantify the effect of school bus transportation on chronic absenteeism. Kindergarten was once considered by some to be a relatively insignificant grade level – it is still not mandatory in California until age 6. But as the heft of kindergarten curricular offerings has increased, so have the ramifications of missing formative instruction. Research has linked chronic absenteeism in kindergarten – defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days – to lower achievement in future grades in math and reading, an increase in problem behavior and difficulty in obtaining a score of “proficient” on California’s 3rd-grade reading test. In turn, students who struggle with reading in 3rd grade are less likely to graduate from high school on time.”(more)