Angry with attendance policies

[chrisb26]

My parents took me and my brother out of school on occasion. But it was never something that was done often. If we were taken out for vacation it was always for a long weekend. Where we already had a couple days off to begin with for example Parent Teacher Conferences or a holiday weekend. So it was never more then 2 or 3 days.

Our school was pretty easy with missing for vacation. They had a form that we had to fill out if we were gone more then 3 days we had to take it to all our teachers and they had to sign it then we brought it back up to the attendance office.

I think that schools should realize that everybody's situation is different not everybody has the opportunity to be off during the summer months and the only time they are allowed is during the school year. However I can also understand the need not to let the children out. But the way I see it is if its a good student who doesn't have many absent days and does well in school there shouldn't be a real big problem with it.

[Sunshine1010]

I don't think I've ever met someone that said.......
"I wouldn't be working in this dead-end job if my parents kept me in school in November of 1980 instead of going to WDW. I wish I could make up those 5 days and get my career in order"

[luvdiznee]

One moderately ironic thing I see in all this is that school districts are constantly bemoaning the lack of parental involvement in their kid's lives.

I guess they're only interested in family time and parental involvement when it suits them (and their test scores) or when it involves the parents and kids being holed up in the dark doing reams and reams of pointless homework.

ITA. I couldn't believe how much they kept our 4th grade kids at DD's school to study for a "pretend" state test. And how these teachers kept threatening and bribing the kids into having to do so good on these test.

[IloveDisney71]

I also know that this is not a teacher decision but a school system decision so I am not trying to direct this at teachers. Most of the time our kids teachers work great with us because they know what I do. I just hate that a teacher is put in the awkward position by the systems decisions. I don't want to ask them to do anything that makes them break the rules.

I'm a teacher who lives in one of these systems that goes overboard about absences. However, they allow the schools to choose if they want to offer vacation days or not - some schools allow 5 days and some allow none. I'm also a mother whose children used to go to schools in this school system...and I've handled it differently for different vacations depending which school they attended. My children always had A's and B's and wouldn't be harmed by missing a few days of school so I never felt guilty about them missing time. Especially when some of my students were missing 20 plus days and nothing was happening to them. A lot of the parents have just learned to lie and say they had a family emergency so they don't get penalized. It's really sad!
As a teacher, I always had a certified substitute so my students didn't suffer any ill effects of my missing 2 or 3 days.
What I'm trying to say is that school is important, BUT so is family. I think all schools should offer vacation days!!!
I have never minded getting missed work together for my students...I always have my plans ready two weeks in advance anyway.

[mdhiggin]

Wow! This has been an exciting thread. Even two warnings from the moderator. No disrespect, Jeff.

Anyway, we decided to just send the teachers a note today about the absence. Our kids said the teachers were fine with it. One even told my son that BTMRR was her favorite ride. I guess they don't worry about the policy as much as I was led to believe. I told them we would be more than willing to make up any work in advance or upon return, either was fine. Don't I feel silly?

DD8 thought we should tell them she had to get Stitches.

[bouncer]

So glad to hear that thus far it will not be as big of problem as anticipated. Have a safe trip & don't forget your trip reports!! Have fun!

P.S. Please tell Mickey we'll see him real soon.

[kakn7294]

To the OP - I hope it works out that you can enjoy your vacation without a hassle from the school district. We've made the decision to enjoy family vacations in the summer months (as long as we can secure the vacation time at work - not always easy to do) because DD13 is in 8th grade and it's more severely frowned upon to miss school in for vacations in the upper grades. That said, DD's HS band is going to WDW in March (see signature!) and we're going with her. She will miss 4 days of school and the school will "excuse" them but they will have to make up any missed classes, including gym class! DD8 (3rd grade) will miss with her and I'm hoping the school doesn't give us a hard time about that. I'm going to try to minimize what DD8 misses by sending her for a partial day then having her miss only 3 days.

[wjrhw]

If you were a teacher you would know that teachers/school systems already DO a great deal of things for students, students who are sick and students that have bad home lives.

Let me explain my attitude with a few examples of some of the things that teachers I personally know have had to do include:

-Buying school supplies from their own money because the parents couldn't or wouldn't.

-Picking a kid up at home and taking him to catch the bus on a Saturday for a band competition because his parents were too hung over from the night before and swore at him when he tried to get them up to drive him.

-Dealing with kids that come to school drunk or high, in one case because the sophomore had a couple beers with dear old Dad at the breakfast table.

-Calling a parent to inform them that their child is not in school only to be told the kid was home sick......all the while looking out the window at the 13 year old standing in a parking lot across the street smoking with his buddies.

- Having to take a high school kid aside after school and explain that they needed to take a bath or shower and wash their hair because they were sent to school with body odor and dirty clothes. Having to call a second grader's parents to tell them the same thing and being told to mind their own business.

-Being called into the principal's office and almost fired when parents complained that you slammed their kid into a locker. Having to explain that what you did was pin the kids hand against the locker so you could get the KNIFE out of it that he had pulled on you when you told him to get his hand off his girlfriends behind in the hallway. (This one happened to my father).

-Spending hours on the telephone, on their own time, trying to talk to parents of kids that are failing. Having the parents curse at them and tell the teacher that if their kid is failing it is the teacher's fault and not to bother them.

From reading this forum it is pretty obvious that this is a very dedicated group of parents who would never dream of letting their kids be in these situations. Your kids are very lucky.

The thing is that all of these things happened in nice small towns in "good" school districts..... places where people would swear that these things never happen. Don't be so sure you KNOW what your kids teacher is doing with their time.

Perhaps my knowledge of these " infinite situations and extra work" that you refer to is why I give a teacher a pass if they don't have the time to drop everything and make a pretty little special packet for your cherub to take on their Disney vacation so they don't have a dreaded zero for a week. Most of these teachers have their own kids they want to spend their time with too, you know.

Some kids would pray that little zero is all they had to deal with....... and so does their teacher.

I apologize if I seem to be taking a snarky attitude. I just seriously believe that some people have no CLUE what teacher's deal with and some people that I love very much are teachers.

I apologize. My DD goes to a school with very few problems where the teachers have it easy in comparison to you. They spend countless days showing movies and other nonsense where DD learns nothing. And most of the parents are very involved with their child's schoolwork. Sometimes overly involved.

[DisneyOtaku]

I couldn't believe how much they kept our 4th grade kids at DD's school to study for a "pretend" state test. And how these teachers kept threatening and bribing the kids into having to do so good on these test.

Because from what I understand, depending on the scores from all the students determines which schools get more funding. Do well, you get more money for newer equipment and the like--which I always thought was kinda backwards. I mean, shouldn't the schools with lower scores get more funding since they obviously need the help?

As for the "pull out" topic at hand, during my time in the public school system, my school district used to have 14-unexcused miss days. I have now heard they have reducded it to 5 because so many parents pulled out their kids for vacations that went past the 14 day mark. It's sad that so many people abused the system that now everyone has to pay for it.

Now, as much as I would love to go to Disney during the off season, I can't justify it when I'm paying nearly 2000 dollars a semester to go to school ^^;

[Puppy Mom]

Thank you for your understanding, wjrhw.

I do apologize if I offended anyone.

I am glad that the situation seems to be going to work out for the OP.

[green ranger]

Keep in mind that many State Legislatures now set attendance policies and school calendars and school employees, administrators and school boards have virtually no say on the subject.[/QUOTE]

The problem may be just that... the state gets too involved with family life now. It's coming to a point where they aren't letting the parents have any choices.

[KAT1811]

I agree! You never know whether or not you will wake up tomorrow, so take family time when it fits your schedule and budget best! While school is incredibly important, family time is supreme.

I never want to say "I wish I'd . . . " live each day to it's fullest as one never knows. Scary thought but true none the less.

Not to stir the pot, but is taking kids out of school for family trips a fairly new thing?

My parents pulled me out every year for 2 weeks to go to WDW with the family when I was young. Now we pull our children out. Vicious cycle I suppose.

I agree totally with your post on the topic. Responsible parents shouldn't have to explain why their kids will be out.

I don't mind explaining if the school has an open mind. The only year we had a problem (5th grade) the teachers told the children that the only excuse from school they would accept was if they were in the hospital or dead. The teacher "punished" our DD as much as possible upon her return but we dealt with it and DD survived.

-Buying school supplies from their own money because the parents couldn't or wouldn't.

Good to hear that you reach out to help your students. DH and I shelled out over $100 for back to school supplies (not a backpack or anything like that) for our oldest DD this year (the teachers send home a list of supplies to purchase complete with color coded notebooks and folders). I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that we live in an area where what you described isn't a problem.

I don't think I've ever met someone that said.......
"I wouldn't be working in this dead-end job if my parents kept me in school in November of 1980 instead of going to WDW. I wish I could make up those 5 days and get my career in order"

So true, so true.

We are pulling our oldest DD out of 6th grade this year and our middle DD out of preschool. DH and I own our own company and for business reasons cannot travel during normal school vacation. DH works 90+ hours a week and our family vacation times are cherished beyond belief. The only time off he gets is when we are on vacation other than that DH works 7 days a week 365 days a year. No paid vacation. We plan to pull her out for years to come and are all fully prepared to suffer the consequences if need be.

[kgoulash]

after reading this thread i sure am glad we homeschool ( and no we dont' homeschool just for our wdw vacations )
we were always taken out of school for 2 weeks at a time growing up with no problems, i even graduated with honors
glad to hear all went well for the op
have a great trip!!!