Who(m) has taken their kids out of school for a trip?

I would take my kids out. I think school systems neeed to get off their high-horse because for most its just not working. I guess the "experts" forget that a vacation is FAMILY TIME something which is being lost.
I think overall any trip to anywhere is an educational experience. For your child to travel to another location and see how other things are done is educational and broadens one's visions. Yet, teachers who have used lesson plans over and over for years find it hard to give a parent material to go on vacation.
I find Tina RN's problem totally out of line.
People are just missing the whole point of a vacation in this day and age. I agree school work should be made up, but the USA is losing its sense of time as a FAMILY which studies have found help our children!!!!

Dave

My parents always took me out of school for at least 1 week during the school year for vaction to Florida. My teachers would have assignments ready and anything where my classmates had to 'take notes' I always made arrangements with a friend before hand to borrow said notes. (I always made sure it was one of my really smart friends ;) )

Tina RN I feel bad that you feel you have to make excuses to your childrens teachers. You and them are both adults and what they (teachers/school board) need to realize is that not every family has the advantage of being teachers and off for several months during the summer, have every statutory holiday, winter break, spring break, etc etc etc off. [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]

I am assuming by the RN at the end of your name that you are a nurse. I too work in the emergency services field. Alot of people cannot relate to the fact that we take what we get when it comes to holidays and have to go on vacation when our employer dictates. Teachers sure would be screaming if they got sick while on their spring break and they ran to the emerg. room and it too was closed down for the break!

I understand that you are worried about your childrens welfare/well-being - disregard that and worry about your family! The children will value and remember a weeks vacation forever,(4 days in your case!) they will forget what happened in class soon enough. Their teachers won't be apart of their lives forever but their family will be!

Okay - I've ranted enough! No disrespect for teachers meant here!

Just a quick question - if you are planning to go the beginning of September, how into their schooling will they be? Won't the school year just be getting started? I know area's differ on their start times. Not that the timimng makes it any less valid, you are still taking them out of school; but it is not like you are pulling them away during exam times either!

Good Luck with it!

[ August 06, 2002, 09:28 PM: Message edited by: Flower ]

Okay, I'm a little confused here. Doesn't the law state the amount of days a school aged child must attend? Do the days missed have to be made up during the summer? I know they have make up snow days in New England.

Is it different in other parts of the country?
No, I'm not just talking about snow days.

When I was younger, My father owned his own business and the easiest time of the year for him to take vacation was in the fall. My parents would take our family out of school for a week. Most of the time we drove to WDW. That was a learning experience in itself. seeing different states and parts of the country. Learning about the Blue Ridge Mountains or about the Piedmont area. I may have missed classroom time at school, but still learned about Petrochemicals and Geothermal energy at the Universe of Energy. We always made up our school work. Most teachers agreed that a child can learn a lot by traveling. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I plan to do the same [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Doesn't the law state the amount of days a school aged child must attend?

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I think most states have a number of days that schools must be in session. If days are taken for bad weather, they must be made up at the end of the year. (our district works 2 extra days into the calendar so that the last day of school usually doesn't change).

There is often a minimum number of days an individual student must be present in order to successfully complete that grade. I remember a case in our elementary school where the kids in one family were rarely at school. (The mother called them in sick with chicken pox 3 times that year. She is in jail now for substance abuse "issues") We had a principal who didn't believe in holding kids back, so they were passed to the next grade. But he would have been well within school policy not to pass them. This policy is regardless of how well the child does academically.

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Originally posted by Roland:
Okay, I'm a little confused here. Doesn't the law state the amount of days a school aged child must attend? Do the days missed have to be made up during the summer? I know they have make up snow days in New England.

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We live in the South. Our schools in La. do not have make up days. The students are allowed so many absences per year. There are excused absences, where the children all allowed to make up missed work. Then there are unexcused absences :rolleyes: , where the children cannot make up missed work. A vacation is considered "unexcused" [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img] . Regardless of if my children will or will not be allowed to make up their work, we will still go and have a GREAT [img]graemlins/party.gif[/img] & EDUCATIONAL experience, along with some great quality & quantity family time. The latter being the most important, as mentioned by many of my fellow intercotees. Thanks again for all of the support!
[img]graemlins/mickey.gif[/img]

This disscussion always kinda pushes my angry button! Bottom line...at what point did the educational system take possession of our children? How dare a System tell me what I can or cannot do with my own children. I will take them on vacation any time I please, period. This is America. Land of the Free. Any THINKING person will CLEARLY see that a week on family vacation is ALWAYS more valuable, life-changing, and important than ANYTHING they will miss in school that week. Give me a break. Almost anything they miss in school can be picked up later or reviewed over the course of about one day. If they miss a family vacation, what they miss is so valuable it is almost inestimable.

[ August 07, 2002, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: PeterPan ]

With rights come responsibilities.

You have the right to take them out of school for whatever reason.

You also have the responsibility to make sure their education doesn't suffer.

You also must take responsibility for any ramifications of their absences.

My parents took my two brothers and myself out of school for a week my senior year. We didn't go to Disney, but to snow ski in Colorado (a seasonal vacation). That was in 1987 and I still haven't forgotten the fun we had! It was wonderful, even with the LONG drive from Florida.

I'm now homeschooling my two children and one of the many benefits is taking vacation whenever my husband can schedule it.

I think family time will have much more of an impact on your children's life in the end than a week of school -- take them out and have fun!

TTA, I don't think anyone's debating you on the point that you have to deal with the ramifications.

We take our kids out of school for Disney trips because we DO think the crowd size and temperature is very important to A) relaxation, B) good memories, and C) quality family time. I've been to WDW over spring break, and there's no way we would get the enjoyment we get in November or February, when we can pretty much decide we want to do something and not wait longer than 20 minutes.

Our children are in lower elementary, so as long as they aren't struggling to keep up, the teachers have no issues letting them go.

Even if the teachers/school system said no makeups, we'd take them out. A "day in a chemistry lab" may not be repeatable or easily made up, but family time, desperately low in today's hectic society anyway, is even harder to reproduce.

That being said, we probably wouldn't remove them for more than one week (five days) of school.

MM

This is the first time that we have planned a trip to WDW knowing that our daughter will miss 2 days of school. She is an excellent student and rarely misses school. I think it is unfair to expect that students and families are not allowed to miss ANY scheduled days of school unless they are so ill that they cannot be at school. Teachers even get vacation days during the school year...why don't students get any? Yes, I realize that there are "in service/teacher work days, holidays, etc" but that forces families to plan their lives around the school district's set schedule which I think is VERY unfair to students and their families. I take my daughter's education VERY seriously and believe that regular school attendance is crucial however I think it is absurd to think that students and their families should plan every family event, vacation, etc. around the school calendar. (Just my opinion)

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Originally posted by Tina RN:
Thanks for the support, especially WDW Crazy! [img]graemlins/clappy.gif[/img] I've been planning this vacation for too long to back out now! My kids will do well with or without making up the work! [img]graemlins/mickey.gif[/img]

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GO GO GO [img]graemlins/clappy.gif[/img] Its called a field trip. Epcot has alot of Educational value. And The math involved in trying to count how many hidden [img]graemlins/mickey.gif[/img]

And yes my 2 Girls will miss 2 days of School. They go 1wk then 3 day weekend for labor day then 2 more weeks the another day of on a wednesday so teachers can plan there next day off lol.

My family also takes a vacation to WDW during the school year to mainly due to the temperatures and traveling with my elderly parents. It has become more difficult missing school as my DS was in Junior High. However, we spoke with all of his teachers before we left and received his assignments.

A tip for those traveling with homework to be completed, instead of carrying the text books, photocopy the pages necessary to complete the assignment and this will save space from carrying all of the school books. I did this on our last trip and it worked really well! We didn't have to fight with a backpack full of books.

This is a sore subject for me. Both of my children have always attended school and rarely miss a day. My daughter had open heart surgery at 5 years old and started school with the other children 2 1/2 weeks later.

Due to my car accident & subsequent years of surgeries I was unable to travel for years which was very hard on our family as we had always taken vacations. When you own a construction business trips times have to vary.

In early 1999 I finally had the clearance to travel. Planned a 17 day trip to the world and planned it over Thanksgiving to minimize the school days missed. In total they missed 6 days of elementary school. The school was fantastic in understanding the need for the trip and backed me 100 percent. We talked to both teachers about the trip and arranged for assignments that would be missed.

One week before we left my daughter came home shaking and crying uncontrollably. The reason in shortened terms: Seems her third grade teacher explained to the entire class how 'special' my daughter was. 'The little Disney Princess' as the teacher referred to her, was being allowed to miss school to go play at Disney World while the rest of them stay and do their school work. The tale went on from there . . . and all the children started laughing and making fun of my daughter. The icing on the cake was everytime my daughter got up from her seat the teacher had the children bow to her. :eek:

I was livid ! :mad: Called the principal, explained what happened and requested that my daughter be immediately moved to a new class. If this teacher was truly concerned about my daughters education she'd would have understood what those children would actually learn from her discusting actions.

My daughter did all of her missed assignments prior to our leaving. When we returned she had written five long essays (one on each park & one describing everything she learned regarding resorts, transportation, food etc.). Her new teacher was very impressed and told her that she had learned so much more in those six days than the class did. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Now the children are in junior high & high school any missed days for vacations are unexcused and can cause them to be held back. I find this truly sad. :( Yes their school work is extremely important; however, I personally think family vacation time is much more important!! Too bad the educational system doesn't include that lesson in the teaching programs.

Note: This is not meant to be a teacher bashing!!

TheSorcererofFantasia,
I am so sorry your child had to experience this. Clearly this teacher should not be teaching, especially young kids.

I said it above and I'll say it again...if the child is doing well in school and does not have too many absences and has no major exams scheduled I think it's fine to take them out of school. Some parents are not able to get the same time off as school breaks. I do this, my friends do this and the rest of my family does this. I try to plan our vacation around teacher confrences or add on a few days before a school break as to minimize the school days missed. I tell the teacher way in advance and even offer that my child do extra work. Although I will say the higher the grade the harder to do this.

My kids will get zeroes for all assignments due during that time. They are not allowed to do the work before they leave or while on vacation.

I just found out from my MIL, who is a principal in our school system, that my child can request to do/make up the work but that the teacher cannot "offer" a child this option. If they don't ask, they get zeroes. Now how many kids/parents wouldn't request to make up the work? :rolleyes: [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img] I am happy,though, that my children will be able to make up their work!!! [img]graemlins/clappy.gif[/img] ºOº ºOº