Milestone 3
Strong and Supported Kindergarten Transitions
Ages 4–6
Children arrive at kindergarten shaped by what they’ve learned in a wide range of settings, including home, child care, preschool, Head Start, and Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education settings (EI/ECSE). Schools need to be ready for this range of experiences, by knowing who is coming, meeting children where they are, and ensuring no family has to navigate the start of school on their own.
Why it’s important
The transition into kindergarten is one of the most important turning points in early childhood. When children enter school feeling safe and welcomed, when families build relationships with educators from the start, and when schools understand the strengths and needs each child brings, children are more likely to:
- Attend regularly.
- Develop a sense of belonging.
- Receive timely support when they need it.
How Oregon measures up
Oregon’s transition-to-kindergarten is affected by a broader set of family and community conditions, including stable housing and access to physical and behavioral health care, that shape how children arrive at school and how consistently they attend once they enroll. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) is currently the only standardized measure that allows comparisons between Oregon and other states across multiple developmental domains for children ages three to five. Oregon lags behind national averages and other western states on most measures.
Indicator 1
Transition support reach
Oregon offers publicly supported kindergarten transition activities, but there is currently no comprehensive measure of whether these activities actually reach children and families before and during the entry into school.
The best available proxies for transition reach in Oregon are participation in Kindergarten Partnership and Innovation (KPI)-funded family engagement and transition programming coordinated through Oregon’s Early Learning Hubs, and the Family Conversation pilot, a newer initiative designed to build direct relationships between kindergarten teachers and incoming families. KPI data captures program attendance rather than individual families served, and the Family Conversation pilot is not yet implemented statewide. But together, they offer meaningful signals about where the system is growing and where gaps remain.
KPI data reflects program attendance counts, not a full statewide count of the number of families served. PSU estimates that KPI reached approximately 7,500 families per year during the early reporting period, but some families may have participated more than once, and some attendance was likely underreported. Oregon does not currently have a single, unduplicated statewide count of families who received kindergarten transition support.
Oregon’s Family Conversation initiative is designed as a relationship-building activity between kindergarten educators and families of children entering kindergarten at the start of the school year. It is intended to help schools create more inclusive and personalized classroom environments and to build trust between families and schools from the very beginning.
Participation grew from over 30 schools in fall 2023 to over 50 schools across 15 districts in fall 2024, with more than 1,800 Family Conversations reported. Although this reflects meaningful growth for the initiative, the Family Conversation is not yet implemented statewide. Oregon still lacks a single metric showing how many families experienced a strong onboarding process across the state.
Oregon lacks a statewide measure showing how many families received clear information before school started, had a meaningful connection with school staff early in the year, or felt prepared to navigate their child’s school. The Family Conversation pilot is a promising model, but statewide implementation and consistent data collection are still needed.
Oregon recommendations
Establish core transition practices every district is expected to implement, including spring family contact, at least one transition event, and multilingual materials.
State awards need to be announced with enough lead time for districts and partners to plan, recruit, and staff programs effectively.
Support pre-K teachers visiting kindergarten classrooms, kindergarten teachers visiting preschool programs, and children visiting schools where they will attend kindergarten.
Designate one annual day to bring pre-K and kindergarten educators together for professional learning, with time for incoming kindergartners and their families to visit the schools they will attend.
Connect school districts, Early Learning Hubs, Head Start, Preschool Promise, community-based providers, and EI/ECSE partners around shared transition expectations.
Sustained professional learning specifically designed for educators from pre-K through second grade will have greater and more lasting impact than one-off trainings.
State-funded transition efforts should include interpretation, translated materials, and partnerships with culturally specific organizations, with flexibility for local adaptation.
Prioritize districts with low early-grade attendance or greater need for multilingual outreach, and fund the training and implementation support required for success.
Indicator 2
Kindergarten and early grade attendance
Early, consistent attendance is foundational. Children who miss school frequently in kindergarten and the early grades are significantly more likely to fall behind in reading and math. Chronic absenteeism in early grades is also one of the strongest predictors of longer-term disengagement from school. Oregon tracks whether children are regular attenders in kindergarten and the early grades, based on whether they attend more than 90% of their enrolled school days.
In 2018–19, prior to the pandemic, 79.3% of kindergarteners and 83.5% of first graders were regular attenders. By 2024–25, those figures had fallen to 67.3% and 70.7%, respectively, a drop of 12 or more percentage points in both grades. The statewide all-student rate has similarly not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Attendance gaps fall sharpest along lines of housing stability, race, income, and language. The 2024–25 ODE data reveals that chronic absenteeism is not evenly distributed. Children experiencing homelessness have a chronic absenteeism rate of 56.4%, more than one in two. Children experiencing poverty are chronically absent at 46.9%. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander children are at 51.5%, American Indian/Alaska Native children at 45.9%, Hispanic/Latino children at 40.5%, and Black/African American children at 40%, all well above the statewide rate of 33.5%. Children with disabilities and English learners also face chronic absenteeism rates of 40% or higher. These gaps reflect Oregon’s need to address the specific challenges families are navigating.
A note on national comparisons: Comprehensive national benchmarks for kindergarten and first-grade regular attendance are not currently available in a form that allows direct state-to-state comparison for these specific grades. But national research consistently shows that early chronic absenteeism is a widespread and worsening challenge across the country following the pandemic, and that patterns established in kindergarten are predictive of later outcomes.
Oregon recommendations
Use Oregon’s new accountability framework under Senate Bill 141 (2025) to support early attendance. When schools fall below targets on K–2 attendance, especially schools serving children experiencing homelessness, multilingual learners, and children of color, connect them to Every Day Matters coaching and ESD support through SB 141’s tiered support structure.
Oregon should treat pre-K through grade 3 as a coherent system, aligning expectations, relationships, and supports across the transition rather than treating kindergarten as a fresh start.
Districts should embed attendance supports into registration, summer outreach, the first weeks of school, and early family follow-up to absences. Under SB 141, Oregon can require this as part of district improvement plans, tied to the K–2 attendance metric.
Expand community-centered attendance grants that connect schools with health agencies, community-based organizations, and family-serving partners, especially in communities facing transportation, housing, health, or family stress barriers.
Acting on the data
But the transition experience is not equally strong for all Oregon families. Kindergarten and first-grade regular attendance remain well below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that too many children are starting school without the connection and stability that a strong transition makes possible. Children from families with low incomes, children whose home language is not English, children with disabilities, and children in rural communities are among those least likely to experience a consistently strong and supported entry into school.
