Does anyone take their kids out school for DVC?

[JESW]

Oh boy...this discussion comes up A LOT and you are going to get opinions on both sides.

Yes, we are some of those awful parents who take our kids out of school for Disney vacations in November. (DD5 & DS9) No, we don't justify it as an educational trip - we want to go when the weather is better anbd the lines are shorter - simple as that.

Education is important but it is not everything in life. I figure our kids will only want to vacation with us for so long and we are going to take advantage of that. Years from now will they remember what they missed that week in school or will they remember the great time we had as a family?

I bet the folks from 9/11 and others who passed on way too young wish they had more family time to spend. Life is way too short and I am going to be with my kids as much as possible. Flame away at what a bad parent I am if you wish. Our kids - our choice.

Jill

 

[MAC3]

I have taken her out even though most school systems frown on it. With her being in the older grades, I have been hesitant to take her out although, I'm thinking about doing it next year as DD will be in 8th grade and I know it will be impossible to do so in HS.

I can't see the harm in it as long as your child can handle the work load on the return and he/she isn't struggling to begin with.

Edited to add: I have had teachers tell me that they will get more from being with you for a week than they will that week in school.

 

[grandma]

When I was a child, my parents took me out of school every other year to visit Disney World. I had no problem with the make up work. Then I became a parent and I took my kids out of school 3 times during their education. They also never had a problem with school when they returned. Their grades were always good, as mine were. I don't think it hurt any of us. As a matter of fact, it gave us many, many happy memories. I went one time in August and I would never go again in the summer. No one had a good time with everything being so crowded.

 

[LisaSt]

I agree with a number of posts here and the one stating family time is just as important is right on the mark. With most families having both parents working and holiday schedules changing all the time and some not able to take peak vacation times off from work it makes it nice to go away in Dec or January or May etc. I believe that a family trip is teaching your kids something it is teaching them family values and no matter what family comes before all else none of us live forever and never know what the next day hold so if you plan a trip during school take it. We take our kids for 2 weeks every year and it will not change and our school has nothing but praise that we feel family time is impotant to us they wish more patrents felt this way.

 

[WDWJWEB1]

My DW and I take our children (ds9 - dd7) out of school at least 7 days a year for our May, Oct or Dec vacations. We see nothing wrong with it as long as the children are doing well in school. Both DS and DD have had nothing but A's since they started school, When they start H.S. we are not sure yet how that will work. I for one would love to home school our children and that would solve our vacation problems but home schooling is a whole different topic. But I believe each Family situation is different, so you have to do what you and your children are comfortable with

 

[mikeymars]

Given this subject comes up again, and again..and again, I felt I could save the "yank 'em out, our family time is more important than school" crowd some time. In preparing your post, please feel free to simply cut and paste from the generic points you will inevitably make below:

- Hubbie has some quirky job that only allows him to take vacation in early December or early May (yep, sure...).

- Muffy and Billy are "A" students. (yes, certainly....every single child at the MK in mid November has perfect grades).

- Muffy and Buffy are only missing a "few" days (which of course NEVER fall during any critical period of the child's classes...NEVER....).

- Education is "very important" in our family (albeit, not quite as much as going to WDW in off season).

- Epcot is more educational than any textbook (especially the candy store and ride parts...).

- Teacher is always willing and happy to take the extra time and effort to layout a week or more of detailed assignments for Muffy and Buffy (yes, certainly....this sort of thing NEVER bothers teachers.....).

- We make Muffy and Buffy work on their "pre-assigned" homework while at WDW .....(yep, sure....no problems making Muffy choose between early entry and that book report...none at all.....).

- Life is too short to worry about missing some school.........(yes, certainly....and please be sure to include that argument on your child's Princeton application.....).

 

[CyranoJones]

We took our daughter out of school for trips of some sort every year. Our school district (public) allows for family vacation as an excused absence. I do think each parent needs to make this decision for themselves.

 

[WDWorld2003]

We have taken our kids out of school for a few days here and there for vacation when they were younger. Now that they are both in high school we keep it to a bare minimum - a day or two a year as it is too hard to make up if they take off any longer.

Remember, many people don't get vacations when their children are out of school. We have a friend who runs an air conditioning/heating business - he can rarely take a week off in the summer or winter - only in the shoulder seasons. Most people only get 2-3 weeks per year maximum and many times the company you work for can decide when you take that time. Also, many people work nights, weekends, overtime, etc. and rarely see their children. They all deserve a break!

I think it's far better to miss a few days of school than to not go on vacation with family. I know it's difficult for the teachers to have children miss school (we have several educators in our family) but family is more important than anything else. If you're on this board you know what vacations mean to your family and everyone has a right to do what is best for them. Hopefully, they do what's best for everyone - kids shouldn't have to be stressed out over a few days of vacation but if everyone can handle the workload - I say go for it!

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

Originally posted by mikeymars
Given this subject comes up again, and again..and again, I felt I could save the "yank 'em out, our family time is more important than school" crowd some time. In preparing your post, please feel free to simply cut and paste from the generic points you will inevitably make below:

- Hubbie has some quirky job that only allows him to take vacation in early December or early May (yep, sure...).

- Muffy and Billy are "A" students. (yes, certainly....every single child at the MK in mid November has perfect grades).

- Muffy and Buffy are only missing a "few" days (which of course NEVER fall during any critical period of the child's classes...NEVER....).

- Education is "very important" in our family (albeit, not quite as much as going to WDW in off season).

- Epcot is more educational than any textbook (especially the candy store and ride parts...).

- Teacher is always willing and happy to take the extra time and effort to layout a week or more of detailed assignments for Muffy and Buffy (yes, certainly....this sort of thing NEVER bothers teachers.....).

- We make Muffy and Buffy work on their "pre-assigned" homework while at WDW .....(yep, sure....no problems making Muffy choose between early entry and that book report...none at all.....).

- Life is too short to worry about missing some school.........(yes, certainly....and please be sure to include that argument on your child's Princeton application.....).

 

[Mickmse2002]

Originally posted by mikeymars
Given this subject comes up again, and again..and again, I felt I could save the "yank 'em out, our family time is more important than school" crowd some time. In preparing your post, please feel free to simply cut and paste from the generic points you will inevitably make below:

- Hubbie has some quirky job that only allows him to take vacation in early December or early May (yep, sure...).

- Muffy and Billy are "A" students. (yes, certainly....every single child at the MK in mid November has perfect grades).

- Muffy and Buffy are only missing a "few" days (which of course NEVER fall during any critical period of the child's classes...NEVER....).

- Education is "very important" in our family (albeit, not quite as much as going to WDW in off season).

- Epcot is more educational than any textbook (especially the candy store and ride parts...).

- Teacher is always willing and happy to take the extra time and effort to layout a week or more of detailed assignments for Muffy and Buffy (yes, certainly....this sort of thing NEVER bothers teachers.....).

- We make Muffy and Buffy work on their "pre-assigned" homework while at WDW .....(yep, sure....no problems making Muffy choose between early entry and that book report...none at all.....).

- Life is too short to worry about missing some school.........(yes, certainly....and please be sure to include that argument on your child's Princeton application.....).

Are you by chance a teacher?

 

[kel3420]

Having done this several times in the last ten plus years, I have some thoughts on this topic. I, personally, do not have any problems whatsoever pulling kids out of school in the elementary years. As my kids grew older, we were more and more hesitant about taking them out of school. We used to go the first or second week of December, but found that Thanksgiving week worked best for us. We would go from the Sat before to the Sun after, only having to take them out of school for three days instead of five. What ended up happening, is that the schools changed their schedules, and began giving the whole week off for the Holiday. This allowed students and teachers to go away, which worked out great for everyone.

As my kids got older and into Jr. High and HS, we made the decision to not pull them out anymore. Actually last year, I found a great air fare and asked my HS daughter if she wanted to go, and she was adament that she did not want to miss a single day of school, so the final decision was hers. We ended up going during Spring Break instead, of course, much more crowded and had a great time.

Obviously this is a personal decision each family will have to make. What I found interesting is how some people respond to this question, as if my decision somehow affects them. Unless you are my child's teacher, my decision doesn't affect anyone else. BTW, every teacher in the elementary years never had a problem with us taking the kids out and usually asked if they could join us, lol.

 

[stacieps]

I have 2 children in elem. school (K & 2nd). I will take them out for a week in Jan. for a family vacation. I have no bad feelings about doing this.

I took DD out for a week last Oct. (for a cruise) then in Nov. we find out my husband's National Guard unit is being activated and he's going to Iraq in January! I was thankful that we'd had a wonderful family vacation so close to when he left. Now, after several stressful months (for all of us!), DH is home due to an injury from an IED explosion - he's had surgery and will have months of rehab. His active duty orders are up the first week of January and I've planned a family vacation for Jan. 22! If the school district can't understand the need for family time (even if it is not on their schedule) then it's the district's problem, I'll do what I need to to deal with it.

That being said, I don't know if I would take them out under normal circumstances if they were in middle or high school. But, no matter the age if I were faced with same situation that we've dealt with this year, we'd some how work out a week to do something fun as a family.

 

[JoeThaNo1Stunna]

Future teacher here and I have no problem with taking kids under let's say 12 out of school. It definetly becomes difficult to make up work when you miss even two days at the high school level. I missed two days for a WDW my soph. year of high school and it definetly took a long time and a big effort to get back to where I was. I wouldn't do that to my older child. I don't have a problem with people doing it, but it is very hard to make up that work. I definetly went to school sick plenty of times b/c missing school is too much of a hassle these days. I will try to make it easier on my future students if they miss a few days.

 

[mikeymars]

Originally posted by Mickmse2002
Are you by chance a teacher?

No - manage research and development for a large financial services firm. However, have educators in my family (father and grandfather were professors at a VERY well known graduate school) so that may somewhat affect my viewpoint, albeit we're discussing elementary and secondary school issues here, not the behaviors and values of Doctoral candidates.

Whatever, the point of my post was simply to show how transparent most of the arguments of the "indulge them, school can wait" crowd are.

 

[sgtdisney]

Unless my child had a difficult time in school I would definitely do it. Have done it in the past, will do it in the future. In fact, if Ivan cooperates, we will be doing it next week.

We are going to South Florida to visit my brother in law and celebrate his triplets 2nd birthday. My son will miss 4 days. We met with his new 2nd grade teacher last week and told her what we were planning. She had absolutely no problem with it and in fact said he was so bright that if we pulled him out for 10 days he would have no problem catching up. The teacher suggested that we have our son keep a journal and write something up and present it to the class. We will have him do this on this trip. He did this in Kindergarten as well when we took him out for 4 days when the triplets were born and we went down to visit them and the family.

I think this decision is best left to the parents after communicating with the teacher. School is important, that is for certain, but so is family time and if your child is able to take off and not suffer for it, why not. My parents took me and my brother out of school for a couple days here or there for trips all the way through high school. I am pretty sure I didn't suffer because of it.

 

[LisaSt]

Journals are a great way to help them out. Our daughters teacher last year had her do this. She was to collect stuff from down there and keep a journal to do a presentation when she got back. She had shells and pictures etc of different animals and birds for the class to look at along with information on them all. The kids loved it and so did our daughter.

 

[mikeymars]

 

[Parrothead1964]

I'll toss in my 2c worth. All three of my kids have always been straight A students, and every year, my wife and I take them somewhere special. Sometimes it used to be during school, but most times it was not. This was with the full support of the teachers, because my ex-wife always set it up ahead of time. She would work with the teachers to get the kids' assignments done ahead of time if possible, and we'd always bring the kids back a day early so they could get their remaining homework done during the last day of their vacation.

I say we used to do this, because as of a year or two ago, the attendance policies have been revised to a much stricter standard. I'm not going to use this forum to argue the relevance or value of this change, but that's the way it is now.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is the same thing many here have said ... if they can handle it, more power to you.

 

[mikeymars]

Originally posted by kel3420
I, personally, do not have any problems whatsoever pulling kids out of school in the elementary years.

Nice to know some people still live in the "Pleasantville" 1950s world, where elementary school consists of ducky-horsey Dick and Jane type material. In our system, our daughter is already starting foreign languages and trigonometry in the 5th grade. Missing a week of the class work involved in that isn't an inconvenience, it's a major disruption, which no responsible parent would condemn his or her child to.

Or stated differently, some of us don't need "attendance rule arm armtwisting" to know that pulling children out of school for vacations is generally a bad idea - the realities of the post millennium world and personal common sense is enough.

 

[Missy1961]

My sister and BIL are starting to discuss this. Their oldest child will start kindergarten tomorrow. His mom lives in FL, and they have combined a visit to grandma with a day or so at Sea World or DW. They made this year's trip in June--after Samantha was done with her Pre-K class. But June was hot (I went along for the visit.) and the rates are higher. So they would love to go another time--October maybe. So my sister and I were discussing this yesterday. We're just not sure what they should do. I can see both sides of this.