Our Cohort of Chronically Absent Kindergartners -- Who Are They?
Our story follows one cohort of kindergartners -- those who started RI public-school kindergarten in the fall of 2004, and continued with their class into middle school. On the graphs they're labeled KG0405.
Included are those students who attended at least 90 days of that first year, and stayed with the cohort, though they might have changed schools within the state's system.
Not included are students who left the state, transferred to private or parochial schools, or were held back to repeat kindergarten. Any students who enrolled in the cohort's grades after the kindergarten year were also not included. Click here to view our cohort in a graph.
This way we can examine a specific set of chronically-absent children. First we observe who they are. Then we look at certain effects of their absenteeism over time. Finally, we report some characteristics they have in common and share the thoughts of representatives of agencies who deal with those characteristics.
