Excuse letter for school

[saskdw]

Wow. Just... wow.

You can get down off your high horse with the wow comments.

My DW is a school teacher.

I'm just amazed there are places in the "free world" where a school board or government dictates when you can take a family vacation. I've actually never heard of that before I joined DIS. No one in these parts would give it a seconds thought to pull their kids out of school for a vacation and no one at the school would dream of questioning it.

 

[dina444444]

I know the district the I grew up in asks that parents contribute $35 a day for each day you are absent for a non-medical absence to make up for the $35 they wont get from the state government due to the absence.

 

[HM]

My kid's school would not have excused a trip to a theme park desitination, so I wouldn't even bother with a letter, OP.
My DD took a trip to NYC with relatives and though it seemed very educational to me, it was not allowed as excused. So, from then on, we just took the kids out for the day or two we needed (never a week during school) and let it be unexcused. What we did to was ask the teachers for accomodations for what they were missing.

 

[VacaPlanner2012]

We have done it every year, and it is never excused. The first year we got a nasty gram from an administrator in the Board's office about how missed days could lead to failure and being held back. As a teacher and administrator in private schools, I was livid. I set up a meeting with this individual and asked one question - could you pick my student out of a lineup? The answer was no, they had never met my child. When the absent box hits a certain number, they send the form letter. That's it.

His teacher(s) could not have been more supportive - his daily writing assignment was about his vacation, his daily reading was about vacation. We bring in Mickey shaped rice krispy treats, or Minion pencils, or Sea World stuff and everything is fine. Sometimes, we in formal education do a lot to screw up true learning. Unfortunately, as one who spent 12 years in private education, colleges and college admission departments care a lot more about your standardized testing scores than your family vacations.

The problem is systemic - take your kids on a great vacation, create happy memories. Teach them a bit about having to get ahead of schedule or catching up after the fact. That in itself is probably a more valuable life-lesson than any lesson plan they missed. I know what my desk looks like when I get back to work after vacation, and I know I am not alone.

 

[smiths02]

Gerogia is this:
The State Department of Education’s provisions for excused absences are limited to the following reasons: 1. illness 2. death in the immediate family 3. special/recognized religious holiday observed by student’s faith 4. documented court appearance/government order 5. service as a page in the GA General Assembly 6. absence to vote in an election 7. absence of up to five (5) days per year for students of parents serving in the military who are being deployed or are on leave

Students in grades 11 and 12 may miss two days during each of their junior and senior years for college visits. (Which is so strict! I missed an entire week of school to be interviewed for a scholarship by a college in GA, I'm from CA)

High school students gets tricky because in our district, you can exempt some final exams if you have good attendance. Also, too many absences will be reported and could mess with driver's license

Now, I suppose the individual teacher and/or school in GA can decide if they let the child make up work from an unexcused absence.
Pre-Arranged Absence:

Procedures:
-Pre-Arranged Absence forms will be issued only after a written request is made to the principal. This request must describe the educational nature of the absence(s).
-All Pre-Arranged Absence forms must be completed and on file before the date(s) of absence.
-The principal’s decision is final on all pre-arranged absence requests.

Guidelines:
-Pre-Arranged absences are applicable only to trips that are considered educational in nature.
I am certain that attendance at a theme park, even Animal Kingdom and Sea World, especially given that we have an Aquarium and Zoo that would be day trips, would not be excused in our system. An example of something that might be excused would be my example above where the college wanted me to stay on campus for a week to interview for a scholarship or perhaps a student got chosen to attend a week at some program put on by NASA or Harvard.
-It is the responsibility of the student to inform the teacher(s) of the dates of the pre-arranged absence.
-Teachers are not required to prepare assignments in advance for students who are anticipating days of absence.
-At the high school level, these absences will count against exam exemption and the attendance policy.

I would probably just look up my district's policy and then ask the principal if the educational nature of Sea World/Disney would fall under the applicable policy. If not, I would just write a simple letter that my child will be absent and ask for my kid's assignments.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

I've never sent a letter about vacation. Now that Ali is a little older, I try to avoid missing as many school days as possible, but we did trips during the school year when she was younger. Our school doesn't have a mechanism for an excused absence for a vacation, but we've never had a teacher who didn't allow makeup work. I look forward to chatting with the truancy officer after each trip or several small illnesses. She is required to call after 5 unexcused absences, and if you are going to pull the kids out for vacation, you might as well make it a full week, right?

Cute related story - in 3rd grade, Alison's teacher said that all she wanted was for Ali to keep a daily journal of her trip to work on her writing. I put together a book with all kinds of activities (daily writing, daily spending calculations, pages for travel, people we met, license plates we saw, etc.). When she turned it in, her teacher took it around and showed all of the other teachers, not because it was so great, but because she had never had a child actually turn in the requested journal before.

 

[HM]

When she turned it in, her teacher took it around and showed all of the other teachers, not because it was so great, but because she had never had a child actually turn in the requested journal before.

Really? No one ever turned on in? When my two kids were K-2 this is what the teachers asked of them too. They gave them the large lined paper with the top half blank. I put them in notebooks and the kids did a picture of their favorite thing that day and wrote what it was below on the lined part. I still have those four Journals/two trips (teachers gave them back) and they are a treasured memory of our early Disney trips. The year my son (oldest) was in 2nd grade was the last time we took the kids out of school for a week (four days since we combined with a Monday holiday). Our Disney trips became summer vacation trips.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

Really? No one ever turned on in? When my two kids were K-2 this is what the teachers asked of them too. They gave them the large lined paper with the top half blank. I put them in notebooks and the kids did a picture of their favorite thing that day and wrote what it was below on the lined part. I still have those four Journals/two trips (teachers gave them back) and they are a treasured memory of our early Disney trips. The year my son (oldest) was in 2nd grade was the last time we took the kids out of school for a week (four days since we combined with a Monday holiday). Our Disney trips became summer vacation trips.

It surprised me, too. DD and I are natural rule followers (DD more than me, I'm afraid - poor kid) - it never occurred to us to not do the journal.