DD is in 1st grade and like most schools they have a strict absence policy. If you have more than 10 unexcused absences a state truancy officer gets in involved. Whilst in kindergarten she missed 3 days due to a vacation and flight delays and we got a stern warning letter even though we maintained communication with them throughout. They also make a big deal to celebrate perfect attendance and so she feels like she misses out on the terms that she doesn't have perfect attendance. Since then we have scheduled all vacation only during school holidays but we have 2 trips coming up that will overlap a bit and require a few extra days. How do you handle this? Do you aim for perfect attendance or are you ok with a few missed days for vacation? And how many are you comfortable with?
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I don’t care at all about missing school for vacations within reason. I’d rather live our lives and I think kids learn a lot from travel. Missing school will not affect their education so unless it was a big deal for my child I wouldn’t worry about it
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So far my LOs have only ever missed school for illness, and once for a passport renewal since the embassy is only open during business hours. My LOs have a lot of breaks (similar to a year round schedule), so we have ample time for taking vacations. I have always avoided scheduling travel or routine medical visits during school. I personally do not think it’s ok to miss school for vacation, but like I said, they already have a lot of breaks so we schedule travel around those dates.
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DS1 will be in kindergarten next year- I fully intend to travel during school and will likely schedule 5ish vacation days. I won’t ever strive for perfect attendance - just not a priority for me. Maybe if I thought my kids were behind academically I would change my opinion. But as is, I want to travel at off-peak weeks while they are little.
(Also I’d be really annoyed w a stern warning after 3 explained absences- def would rub me the wrong way) -
DD starts K in fall and I don't have any plans to travel however if we ever do I will take her out no question and no guilt. I feel like vacations and time spent with family are more valuable than days spent in school.. I know I might get some flack for that but it's just how I feel. Obviously I think school is important and I want DD to do well and all but to me real life experiences pose great learning environments too.
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Honestly - I lie. Our school system has a similar focus on attendance, and while we're making our best effort to work travel around the school schedule, there are times when that's not just not going to be realistic. We had a weekend trip in November where LO had to miss 3 days of school, and I told the school we had to be out of town to deal with a family emergency. Those were considered excused according to her records. As far as I can tell, in our system, it's considered excused as long as the parent gives them a reason. So I think your school system is being a little aggressive on this, but because I want to minimize conflict and not have to explain myself to anyone, I just give them a vague reason that could sound like it could be unavoidable.
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At this age (PK and K), I take them out of school for family vacations. With my husband’s work schedule, it’s how we have to do it. I realize that as they get older it will be harder for them to miss school and catch up on work. But for now, I see no issue with them missing. But my school is not that harsh about it. I just tell them, they’ll be out, we’re going to Disney. And the response from the teacher is Have fun, can’t wait to hear all about it.
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DS1 is in kinder and I’ll be keeping out of school for 3 extra days after spring break as we are traveling to see family. Myself and DH think this is fine but Inwouldnt do more than a few days in a year.
His school strongly discourages taking kids out for vacation time and the school rule is that the teachers do not have to give schoolwork to take.
When he is in older grades we may not take vacation time during school tome but somethings like this year there are big family events that you need to go for.
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I personally don't think it's a big deal, but my DH does, so we are sticking to travel during school vacations. I get it--why is it ok for affluent parents to keep their kids out of school for travel, while poorer kids get dinged for being out for other potentially very legit reasons? I don't think it should be up to parents to decide whether an absence is "for a good reason." I also think travel is a good experience for kids--but you should take the consequences if there are some.
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I think it's okay within moderation, and only if you ask for the makeup work and don't drop any balls. I'm a teacher but I don't work in the same schools district as my kids--a lot of our holidays don't align, and sometimes we have to plan a vacation around my schedule, which means they miss school. I wouldn't do it frequently, but it sometimes ends up being 1x a year.
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Family vacations are considered approved absences in our district, but you do need to complete a form and submit it a month ahead of time.
I don't think missing for a vacation is really a big deal when they're little. We typically try to only travel during breaks, but recently needed to pull E for a week for a family wedding. If I'm paying $1500 to fly my whole family somewhere, I'm going to stay for the whole week. We asked his teacher for make-up work, but he said not to sweat it and just read. -
Funny I was just talking about this with my friends- her school mentioned it at the K info session, strongly discouraging it.
I think it depends but I would strongly try to avoid it. I see it as not only the missed academic lessons (which in K, I don’t think is that big of a deal), but also the disruption to the class overall. Like, the days before and after a school vacation are worse, right? Kids being antsy and out of sorts. Then have a few kids leaving early and they all start misbehaving early, a few kids come back late and it extends the craziness and suddenly for a one week vacation the class has been out of sorts for 3 weeks. But I also assume some kids can go in and out of school more easily and with less disruption. My girl has a really hard time with transitions and changes so I imagine she would be more disruptive than most.
So for like a once in a lifetime trip, or for an important family trip or event, I could see doing it, but I don’t think I would do it just for the sake of saving money to travel during an off peak time.
That said we hardly ever travel anyway so shouldn’t be too hard for us. I think my older daughter has missed a total of one half day for non illness related things.
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I’m a teacher and the vacations in this area are all the same time so it isn’t an option to me. From a teacher perspective I definitely think some types of travel are way more educational. I think for a yearly vacation to Disney when your kid is in high school that’s a bit much. But I don’t know anyone’s situation so I try not to judge.
In terms of impact on your kid, in the younger years I don’t think it’s a big deal at all but as they get older and really need to do make up work it seems like it’s gotta get stressful for them. Some of my students (high school) are amazing at doing all the work and teaching themselves the material. Others not so much and they never recover. So it’s just important to know your kid in that way. It is easier these days bc so much work is available electronically so that is a plus but I also hate to think of my students spending their vacation working so definitely by high school I think missing for vacation should be kept to a minimum or once in a lifetime trips.
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we plan to keep it in mind but not have it be the only reason we travel at a certain time. we did a 2.5 week trip to hawaii to celebrate DH's end of probation for his job (aka years of not being able to go on vacations) during DD1's fall break, but also missing 2 additional weeks of school. she did some work, but it wasn't a big deal academically. we got letters and calls from the school (even though they knew she was going to be out) but i didn't worry about it.
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@petitenoisette: I have had several teacher friends tell me the same. That missing from 8th grade on is going to a bigger deal academically than when they are younger.
I know a bigger issue is that I've been told schools get dinged on their ratings based on attendance. Not sure if that's true or not though.
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We miss some here and there for family stuff and trips, my oldest is also in 1st. I don’t stress and the school doesn’t get aggressive until 10 unexcused / non-illness, I’ve heard. At this age I’m ok with missing and I will ask the teacher if she wants us to make anything up even though I know the answer will be no. It’s pretty common among people we know to miss some for trips, not saying that makes it ok but it makes me feel better.
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Thanks everyone you all make really good points. I feel torn on it. Our school district is aggressive with this and always sends out mailers about how missing school eventually affects their funding. But overall I do think I think for an entire school year a few missed days shouldnt be a big deal especially for a child who is already keeping up well with school work.
@kiddosc: that is awesome that they are approved absences for you guys.
@Mrs. Carrot: haha in our case we need to have a doctor's note or some other evidence for it to be an excused absence.
@birdofafeather: yes I think most schools automatically call everyday that a child is marked absent even though they know in advance that they will be out. -
@Tanjowen: @petitenoisette: Good point it is probably much less of a big deal in the younger grades since they go at a slower pace and repeat a lot of things.
@bhbee: Yes in the past the teacher has always just said no when we asked if she needed to make up the missed work
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I'm not there yet, but as long as it's not a frequent thing and your kid isn't constantly missing for any other reason (approved or not); I don't see what the big deal is. I also get where PP mentioned that you should know how your child learns in middle school and high school as to if they'll struggle by missing days.
Heck my dad was a teacher, and my parents still let each of us have 2 days a year to just not go if we didn't want to (barring major tests and what not).
We usually had to keep vacations to school days off because of our dad, but they did schedule some snow day makeup at the end of the year, and my parents had already paid for all of the vacation so all of us just missed the last 2 days of the year.
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Although I don't think it's a big deal, we personally avoid it. It greatly affects our vacation plans, but I've been bracing myself for this. For us, it means we can only take a 1-week vacation during our favorite time of the year to get away. A week isn't long enough to visit my friends and family back "home", oo it means we're limited to somewhere closer. Scheduling it all within her school breaks will take some extra planning and money, but we'll try to work around it.
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We try to avoid being gone for elective reasons but we aren't as strict about it now in K as we will likely be as DD gets older and school becomes more rigorous. I like the point above about knowing your kid and how they will handle missing in-class instruction time.
It's less the attendance policy/truancy/funding issue but more that she LOVES school and we want to demonstrate to her that it is a priority and a responsibility. She will probably miss about 5 days total this year for non-sickness reasons between full and half-days taken for travel and a full day off when her baby sister was born.
She attends a private charter school so I sometimes feel like this is one of the 'perks' for us in paying tuition, that we don't have to stress about this and have more flexibility. But I also STRONGLY disagree with rewarding children for attendance in any way at any school. It is beyond the child's control if they are sick, if there are family needs that result in absences, etc. I totally 'get it' (attendance awards and rewards have been common forever and I definitely benefitted from them as a child) but it also feels like punishment for students who are chronically ill or have other legitimate reasons for missing days which feels really unfair
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@lindseykaye: I agree! Rewarding perfect attendance seems so weird. And honestly, I don't want your kid or my kid in school if they are sick! There is a difference between discouraging elective absences, and rewarding kids for coming in even if they are sick or making kids who got sick or have a chronic illness feel bad.
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@lindseykaye: @Foodnerd81: so sickness and doctor visits are excused absences and dont count against them
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