Today marks the start of another school year for thousands of students across Monroe County, including the City of Rochester.
Rochester School Superintendent Bolgen Vargas and a group of volunteers drove some children to class if they weren't already on the bus schedule.
Vargas says it's part of an on-going effort to reduce truancy. "Far too many of our children are not coming to school every day,” Vargas said. “Common sense tells us we cannot help our children learn if they're not showing up to school."
Last year, about 10,000 students in the city school district missed at least 10 percent of school days for the year. "We need to change the mentality of this community,” Vargas said. “ It has become acceptable for too many of our children - and I'm talking children who are six, seven and eight years old -missing a month of school."
This year, Vargas set a goal of 95 percent attendance district-wide on this first day of classes. Vargas says we'll know by tomorrow or Friday what the official attendance numbers are for today.
