Poll for DVC owners with school age kids----How many days do they miss per year?

[Tigger031266]

How many days do they miss per year?

 

[dwelty]

this is an interesting post. We have 2 daughters 5 and 2. This year my daughter will miss 5 day in the fall and 10 days in the spring. She is just in Kindergarten so it will not be much of an issue. We will have to reappraise this every year. We will probably reduce the number of missed days as she gets older and school becomes more involved.
We made the mistake of taking my son out of school for two different weeks his senior year and he almost did not graduate. Never again will we make this mistake. We may have to eventually go during the dreaded summer months in a few years.

 

[melissac]

We usually go to Disney once a year from 5-7 days missed. Less points and crowds and more fun for the family. The few days we enjoy Disney and our family every year is with the extra home work that needs to be completed.

 

[Laurabearz]

We like Columbus Week. Which means the kids miss 4 days. Our other trips are during school holidays.

 

[Granny]

Kids never missed school for Disney. We've always gone in the summer because of that.

dwelty...the summer really isn't that bad. Just something to get used to.

 

[kerickson]

We have kids 2.5 and 3.5 so haven't had to worry about this yet. But, I already booked our WDW/DCL vacation for Oct 09 (8 days missed) and then realized my DD will be in Kindergarten
Don't think it will be an issue, but won't be able to take many more long vacations during school months. Once VGC is open, we'll take shorter vacations closer to home...

 

[tjkraz]

I draw the line at one week per year. Pretty tough stance, eh?

Aside from our Disney trips, our kids usually don't miss school. The work schedules of DW and myself enable us to handle most normal appointments after school or on school vacation days. DS is entering second grade and I only recall him missing 2 or 3 days due to illness thru 4 years of preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade.

This current school year we don't have any trips planned. We're scheduled for the 2nd week of June '09. I will be curious to see how we all do with the heat. Hopefully the crowds won't have fully arrived yet.

I'm tentatively planning October '09 so that we get to MNSSHP while the kids are still young. Depending upon how the June trip goes, this may be the last time we pull the kids out. Schools move so fast these days that we can't just automatically expect kids to adjust to 30 hours worth of lost instruction upon their return.

 

[adminjedi]

2 years ago we stayed 9 days over Spring Break, so our high school aged kids missed 2 days of class, while our college age kids had to fly home earlier.

We decided that it wasn't in their best interest, and we didn't like cutting our family vacation short. So, we are now going in the summer to allow all the kids to stay the entire 14 days!

 

[Rock'n Robin]

We went spring break last year and will go again this year. My kids will miss one day. Last year it was the day before, this year it is the first day back. This meant saving hundreds on airfare or I wouldn't have done it. Now I've found out the day we miss is the day musical tickets go on sale, and the musical is "Grease"! So I have to find someone to buy my tickets for me, but I keep telling myself how much I saved on my plane tickets.
Robin M.

 

[eliza61]

We don't take our kids out of school for vacation. we're lucky that we're on the east coast so kids go back to school later. August is a great month for vacations as far as crowds go.

It's kinda of paid off, my son was awarded a $13,000 scholarship/year for 2 years for never missing any days from school. 26grand can buy a lot of disney vacations.

 

[fortheluvofpooh]

our first trip the kids missed 10 days of school, but that was the exception to the rule, we were to go over the summer, then my son was stillborn and we just couldn't muster up the courage to leave the house so soon, so we talked to our school superintendant and he approved our vacation and didn't allow the teacher to send too much work along. (granted DS was only in 2nd grade).
the past 2 trips were 6 days, this upcoming trip it will be 4 days because we planned it to leave on thanksgiving and took advantage of deer day.

 

[PatsMom]

Up until this year DD has missed usually 5 days of school per year. This year she will get to miss 10. She's a senior in high school, on the honor roll and a National Honor Society Member. She's taken several advanced placement classes. It got harder to miss once she reached high school but with some advance planning. bribes for other's to take and share notes, and some before and after school work when she returned she's always been able to make up what she missed. This year she has only quarter long or semester long classes. So she will miss a week first semester and a week second semester. The extra trip in February (before President's week) is kind of a bonus for working so hard through school.

 

[ChelleinNC]

I draw the line at one week per year. Pretty tough stance, eh?

We like to do one week at Christmas time for the shows/decorations and then one week in June as soon as the kids get out of school.

We used to miss a couple of days leading into Christmas break, but last year found that was when all the projects were due So this year the kids (DD14 & DS11) will miss 5 days after Thanksgiving (which will give them plenty of time to catch up before Christmas break)

 

[moredisneyplease]

My boys are only 3 years and 8 months so i havent had to deal with this issue yet. Unfortunately I think I'm going to be one of those mommies who makes her kids go to school and not miss due to a Disney vacation. As much as I love WDW and my DVC I think that I'll probably never pull them out of school for sake of a trip. Of course I say that now, right Check back in a few years!

 

[Starr W.]

My kids miss 2 days for our Thanksgiving trip. I wouldn't pull them out for a week to go to WDW. Neither would want to miss a week of school, they are
1st and 6th graders.

 

[atpatt]

So far we've gone twice during spring break in April (which conveniently includes the week of ds8's bday) and in October we will take our second week-before-Columbus-Day trip, which means they miss 4 days, plus we often end up leaving early and staying an extra night or two. They go to a Christian school and for whatever reason we have the Monday before Columbus day off as teacher in-service instead of Columbus Day itself.

Next year we are going in February during Mardi Gras week, which they also have off as winter break (and next year it includes ds4's bday) and in June. Thinking about trying to get in a Thanksgiving 09 trip too which will only mean missing a couple of days.

Ds8 is a super student but I hesitate to keep taking him out for days at a time. We will see how that works out, lol. Ds4 is in k4 and doesn't really count at this point.

 

[dvcdisney]

During the time that my son was in preschool to grade 3- he usually missed 10-14 days. But now, we have decided to go during holidays and so he will only miss 5-10 days. My daughter is just starting preschool now.

 

[perpetualplanner]

We drew the line at taking them out of school when the older DS hit 5th grade. Of course, now he's in 7th and he'll be missing 5 days this year. We scheduled a trip to celebrate DH and I finishing (hopefully) the Chicago Marathon and his 13th b-day in Oct. He's really hit his groove in Middle School and doesn't have any trouble with the work so I'm not overly concerned about the make-up work. Both principals have already approved the absences so there aren't any worries but this won't become the norm since our trip next year is already scheduled for July.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

It has been quite a while, but we would typically have our kids out of school for 3 or 4 days during elementary and middle school. No missed days for high school.

 

[bookwormde]

We do mostly summer, but if we can find a time when we can get 8 or 10 days with only missing 3 or a maximum of 4 days of school at a less busy time we will do that also. We have a 1000-mile travel distance so that makes a difference.

We like the week after super-bowl when it is not in Florida, the parks are very light Sunday and the beginning of the week and this seam to be a popular weekend to have continuing ed days around in our state

bookwormde