I don't understand why its such a big deal to take your children out of school..

[daisyduck123]

I find it rediculous that is absences aren't excused at all when yours is.

Just like many professionals, I've built up personal leave and am using it....according to board policy. That's why they are excused.

"His" being my son has nothing to do with his absences. His are unexcused, just as they should be...& I choose to live with it.

 

[WIcruizer]

Me either now. OMG..This is not a discussion. This is people who post their point, then get upset when someone else dosen't agree w/them. I am out.

Don't take things so seriously. What you just described above is the definition of "debate." There are certain tpoics we will disagree about in these threads, and you hit on one of them. We're all one big Disney family, and I have no problem going toe to toe with someone, and then buying them a Mickey Bar when I see them. I'm opinionated, and I have no problem with someone throwing it right back at me. That's heated deabte, and there's nothing wrong with it. And yes, I'm sure there's something I do that others wouldn't agree with.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Just like many professionals, I've built up personal leave and am using it....according to board policy. That's why they are excused.

"His" being my son has nothing to do with his absences. His are unexcused, just as they should be...& I choose to live with it.

That's the hypocrisy of the system.

No problem with your excused absence.

 

[DisneyDotty]

MOST districts have almost 3 months off for summer, a week or two for Christmas, a week for Spring Break, and countless other "built in" days off throught the school year. Add it all up, and it's 4 months. Anyone can come up with extreme examples (no spring break, ending in late June) but those are exceptions, not the rule.

Okay, I gotta respond here. Most teacher contracts are around 185 days of attendance. Total possible work days in a year are 261 (take out weekends). 261-185 equals 76 days off. Not bad, but definitely not four months. More like two and a half months off. Total--including winter and spring breaks.
Back to your regularly scheduled debate.

 

[C.Ann]

Residential schools, some private schools, special ed schools do not have the traditional "summers off".. Then there's always summer school (within the traditional school settings - someone has to be there to teach) and aren't there districts scattered throughout the country now that have year-round schooling?

It's not as cut and dried as one might think..

 

[sunkissed212]

My parents used to take me out of school every year. We would go to Florida for 2 weeks every year, faithfully. One week on the ocean side and one week at WDW. Nonetheless, I was lucky enough that we never had a problem with it. They would notify my teachesrs beforehand and I would take homework with me on the trip so that when I came back ,I could fall right back into the routine. I never fell behind and never felt out of place upon returning from vacation (other than I still wanted to be on vacation that is).

I also missed a lot of school because of figure skating. I was a competitive figure skater until I was 17 years old and missed upwards of 10-15 additional days of school a year for competitions and trips etc. Again, teachers may not have been "thrilled" but they never gave us a big problem and actually commended my parents on my grades despite the number of days that I missed.

I retired from figure skating my senior year of high school, the summer prior was my last family trip to WDW as well. I graduated with honors 14th in my class.

I understand that attendance is very important for children but I also feel that letting children have fun is also important. As long as the children can keep up and don't fall behind while they are out of class, I don't see a problem with it. If, when I have children, I have the means to travel like my family did when I was young, and my children are capable of keeping up to speed while we're gone, I won't hesitate to take them out of school either.

 

[Teacher03]

I think teachers rock! They do SO MUCH for SO MANY for SO LITTLE... If they decide to use their leave to take a vacation during the school year, they probably spend countless hours writing lesson plans in advance and grading mountains of their students' papers when they return. After reading some of the comments here, I just wanted to send a little thank you to all the teachers who work so hard.

I think you rock! Thank you for the comments (from a teacher!)

 

[MrsPete]

I have no problems either way--if a district allows teacher to have vacations fine. I think it is hypocritical to not allow families the same courtesy if their jobs have limitations that do not allow vacations at convenient times to the district calendar.

This implies that teachers and students are on equal footing -- that isn't true. Teachers are employees, no different from those in other professional jobs. They're working in a given job in exchange for a paycheck and benefits -- not to better themselves as people. Students, on the other hand, are in school FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT. They are working towards the goals of an education and a high school diploma, and every day should be designed to bring them one step closer. They attend school for very different purposes. Their responsibilities and privledges are very different. To imply that they should be treated the same way because they spend their days in the same building makes no sense.

As a teacher, I assure you that teachers are rarely out for non-medical reasons; it's just too difficult to prepare all the stuff for someone else to do. But I don't see it as hypocritical in the least.

 

[MrsPete]

MOST districts have almost 3 months off for summer, a week or two for Christmas, a week for Spring Break, and countless other "built in" days off throught the school year. Add it all up, and it's 4 months. Anyone can come up with extreme examples (no spring break, ending in late June) but those are exceptions, not the rule..

Take a look at the calendar, and you'll see that this doesn't add up. Let's look at the actual WORK DAYS. I'm a teacher, and I work 200 days/year (180 with students, 20 workdays and teacher-workshop days). My husband is an engineer; he works 240 days per year (50 weeks x 5 days - 10 holidays). Yes, he works more days, but certainly not 4 months more. Plus, he doesn't bring home nearly the work that I do. And he earns 3Xs my salary.

I just won't let that stand. $30,000 or so is not a pittance for working 2/3 of the year with almost complete job security and excellent benefits. And that's a STARTING wage. The average in lost districts is in the mid to high 30s.

Okay, we've already proven that the 2/3 of the year is untrue. However, teachers do have more job security than most other professions, and the retirement benefits are good (though fewer than 15% of all people who begin teaching actually teach 30 years and reap the maximum retirement benefits, and only about 50% teach long enough to have ANY retirement benefits). In my state, teachers start at 24K and "top out" at about 55K, which is not a bad wage, but it's also considerably less than most professionals with 30 years experience.

 

[MrsPete]

That's why there's people waiting and hoping to get those jobs? It can't be that bad if demand for those positions is greater than supply. And the people that accepted $28,000 must have thought the wage was fair. And what do you mean "regardless of the pension?" Do you realize almost nobody gets a pension anymore other than Government employees? I don't have a problem with that, but if it means nothing, maybe we should elimate that. Same with the 100% paid for health insurance. This is REAL money.

Few parts of the country have teachers waiting and hoping for jobs. In my area we have been experiencing a teacher shortage for almost a decade now, and many "lateral entry" people are being hired (that's not really a good thing, but it's necessary).

I know that traditional pensions are a rarity these days, and that's one reason I chose to become a teacher. I don't know where you get the idea that our health insurance is 100% paid; here the state pays a portion and the employee pays a portion. And it isn't very good insurance; for example, I don't have a drug card for 'scripts. My husband's insurance is much better, and he pays less.

The truth about teacher compensation is that you must take the good with the bad. The salary is low for a person who's invested time/money in a college education, the step increase is only 2% per year, but the retirement is good. Obviously I've decided that it's worthwhile; if I didn't think so, I would not stay. However, the fact that we don't have enough teachers to fill the positions (and the fact that we are having trouble getting our most qualified young people to go into education) seems to indicate that the majority of the world doesn't think it's all that great a deal.

 

[MrsPete]

Our school schedule wasn't given to parents this year until the second week of the school year. That's too late for people who need to plan their vacations at work a year in advance, like many of us do.

Hmm. School calendars for the next THREE YEARS are posted on our county website. Knowing my schedule ahead of time is one of the non-financial benefits of being a teacher.

Back when my kids went to Christian school, we used to have a horrible time getting the school schedule.

 

[MrsPete]

And as far as school funding goes, I happen to really like ours. I get $2100 per year per student to spend on their educational endeavors and the school still makes a profit.

I don't think so. I live in a poor state, and we have almost THREE TIMES that much per student. Still, there is NO PROFIT. By law, there is no profit.

Consider the cost of the buildings (in our area they have bond costs), the cost of utilities, the busses (that's a huge one), the cost of materials, teacher salaries . . . it's astronomical. I seriously doubt any public school is doing it for 2K. (Okay, private schools can do it for little more than 2K, but they aren't providing busses, athletic programs, and -- the biggie: special education services, which are required by law.)

 

[daisyduck123]

Hmm. School calendars for the next THREE YEARS are posted on our county website. Knowing my schedule ahead of time is one of the benefits of being a teacher.

You are lucky. In my county, even we teachers only have this year's schedule. We should get next year's schedule in the spring sometime.

 

[jodifla]

Hmm. School calendars for the next THREE YEARS are posted on our county website. Knowing my schedule ahead of time is one of the benefits of being a teacher.

Back when my kids went to Christian school, we used to have a horrible time getting the school schedule.

In my last district, the school district was countywide, and the calendar was posted on the web a good amount of months in advance. (Although, not three years.)

In our new school district, however, it is not countywide, it's a hodgepodge of smaller districts. Our district's web site is "under construction." I got the neighboring school district's schedule weeks before I got ours.

 

[skiwee1]

In my last district, the school district was countywide, and the calendar was posted on the web a good amount of months in advance. (Although, not three years.)

In our new school district, however, it is not countywide, it's a hodgepodge of smaller districts. Our district's web site is "under construction." I got the neighboring school district's schedule weeks before I got ours.

Our school calendar comes out to the public the end of the year prior.

 

[familydisney]

but these 17 pages are the reason I'm frustrated in my profession...

1) Parents think it's fine to take their kids out for 5-14 days for vacations, many times when the student is struggling.
2) Parents also get angry with me when I can't accommodate their vacations because I can't have a student make up class participation or do my lesson plans months in advance for them.
3) Parents don't call me a professional, treat me as a professional, or by any means pay me as a professional
4) Parents expect me to act like a professional in spite of this.
5) When their children fail, they blame me rather than their own decisions and parenting.
6) Parents underestimate the power of attendance when it suits them and overestimate it when it's me missing a day.
7) The pay for a classroom teacher is woefully inadequate when you consider
that the animosity shown to teachers on this board is the prevailing attitude in our communities.
8) We struggle with unruly students, unruly parents, unruly administrators and decades worth of "bad press".

I know this sounds negative and cynical, and maybe I am just a little. I love my job and have been doing it for 13 years. I deal with many fabulous students and supportive parents, but I find it shameful that teachers are held up as paragons of virtue and the ultimate role models (one of the first posts even compared teachers to priests, for goodness sake!) and then are continually thrown under the bus. I know that most people consider teaching an inferior job because in the US, a person's value is equivalent to his salary. Many students assume their teachers aren't supposed to be smart because if they were, they'd be in a different profession...I wonder where they got that idea...
I'd like to stop the insanity of this and tell all people who actually struggled through these posts to think before they speak and act. Pulling your kids out continually for vacations shows children that you value vacations more than education. Bad mouthing teachers show them that you don't respect them, so why should your kids? Disregard for the rules, be they "Fair" or not, will teach them insubordination is a good thing or that the rules don't apply to them. It's ok to fight the system as long as your reasons are just, but can any of us say that the American education system is flawed because we are trying to keep your kids in school?

 

[leighe]

but these 17 pages are the reason I'm frustrated in my profession...

1) Parents think it's fine to take their kids out for 5-14 days for vacations, many times when the student is struggling.
2) Parents also get angry with me when I can't accommodate their vacations because I can't have a student make up class participation or do my lesson plans months in advance for them.
3) Parents don't call me a professional, treat me as a professional, or by any means pay me as a professional
4) Parents expect me to act like a professional in spite of this.
5) When their children fail, they blame me rather than their own decisions and parenting.
6) Parents underestimate the power of attendance when it suits them and overestimate it when it's me missing a day.
7) The pay for a classroom teacher is woefully inadequate when you consider
that the animosity shown to teachers on this board is the prevailing attitude in our communities.
8) We struggle with unruly students, unruly parents, unruly administrators and decades worth of "bad press".

I know this sounds negative and cynical, and maybe I am just a little. I love my job and have been doing it for 13 years. I deal with many fabulous students and supportive parents, but I find it shameful that teachers are held up as paragons of virtue and the ultimate role models (one of the first posts even compared teachers to priests, for goodness sake!) and then are continually thrown under the bus. I know that most people consider teaching an inferior job because in the US, a person's value is equivalent to his salary. Many students assume their teachers aren't supposed to be smart because if they were, they'd be in a different profession...I wonder where they got that idea...
I'd like to stop the insanity of this and tell all people who actually struggled through these posts to think before they speak and act. Pulling your kids out continually for vacations shows children that you value vacations more than education. Bad mouthing teachers show them that you don't respect them, so why should your kids? Disregard for the rules, be they "Fair" or not, will teach them insubordination is a good thing or that the rules don't apply to them. It's ok to fight the system as long as your reasons are just, but can any of us say that the American education system is flawed because we are trying to keep your kids in school?

Bravo! I am a teacher and so will probably never pull my kids (none until January) out of school for vacation anyway. I am lucky, though, because DH's work schedule is relatively flexible with vacation time. I don't have a huge problem with parents pulling kids out of school for vacations if the parents are fully aware of the implications of their decision. IMHO pulling kids out of school for a family vacation because you simply cannont go any other time is way different than pulling kids for a vacation just because you don't want to go to WDW when it's crowded.

I do try to get work together in advance if a student tells me they are going on vacation (I teach high school so I don't honestly have to deal with this a lot). Once, however, I had a parent send the work back to me because she claimed it was "busy work" and not "engaging lessons." Although the work wasn't just "busy work" I certainly can't pre-package "engaging lessons" to be done on an airplane. I kept picturing the kid having to set up learning stations on the plane (to mirror those we used in class that week), dividing the passengers up into groups, giving each group a different primary source, etc.

 

[C.Ann]

Bravo! I am a teacher and so will probably never pull my kids (none until January) out of school for vacation anyway. I am lucky, though, because DH's work schedule is relatively flexible with vacation time. I don't have a huge problem with parents pulling kids out of school for vacations if the parents are fully aware of the implications of their decision. IMHO pulling kids out of school for a family vacation because you simply cannont go any other time is way different than pulling kids for a vacation just because you don't want to go to WDW when it's crowded.

I do try to get work together in advance if a student tells me they are going on vacation (I teach high school so I don't honestly have to deal with this a lot). Once, however, I had a parent send the work back to me because she claimed it was "busy work" and not "engaging lessons." Although the work wasn't just "busy work" I certainly can't pre-package "engaging lessons" to be done on an airplane. I kept picturing the kid having to set up learning stations on the plane (to mirror those we used in class that week), dividing the passengers up into groups, giving each group a different primary source, etc.

------------------------------

I think your thoughts on this are among the most reasonable here.. No "cut and dried - only one way attitude".. Can't speak for myself, but in reference to one of the points made in the post just before yours, I would never take a "struggling" child out of school - even if it meant no vacation at all..

Just as parents are expected to work around their children's school schedule, sometimes it has to work in the reverse due to the parents ability to take time off.. Then when you have two parents working, you really get into a juggling game!

I think most parents respect and admire teachers - however, there are some teachers who simply "expect" it without earning it and they give others a bad name.. Of course you can find that in any profession - nurses; doctors; lawyers; etc..

Anyhow - thanks for your thoughts.. You sound like a reasonable, caring teacher and I'm sure you do a wonderful job..

 

[skiwee1]

------------------------------

I think your thoughts on this are among the most reasonable here.. No "cut and dried - only one way attitude".. Can't speak for myself, but in reference to one of the points made in the post just before yours, I would never take a "struggling" child out of school - even if it meant no vacation at all..

:

I don't think anyone here has said they would pull a child out of school that was struggling or perhaps couldn't catch up with what was missed. My kids have never had a problem in school. The first two weren't genuises but they got B's all through school. The little one, now 6, is in the G&T program. This is my first experience with a gifted kid! Anyway as long as the kids were getting through school on a good basis I saw no reason not to pull them out for vacation. Creating poor work ethics is a lot of BS. My older two have worked all through high school paying for their cars. The oldest works 40 hours and then goes to college 4 nights a week. My DS, now a senior, goes to high school in the am and college in the afternoon. He then works 4 days as a buser in a restaurant. They are hard working kids that know to get what they want they will have to work for it. Pulling them out of school a week or so a year K-5 was no big deal. I think whatever ech individual family wants to do is exactly the right thing to do. Whether you pull them out of school for whatever reason or you don't doesn't make one a better parent. It is what you teach at HOME that counts for how your children turn out and that is what is most important.

 

[C.Ann]

I don't think anyone here has said they would pull a child out of school that was struggling or perhaps couldn't catch up with what was missed..

-----------------------------

I agree.. I was responding to a comment made by familydisney..