School absence letter for cruise

[rkandmjsmommy]

Anyone have a good letter about how a Disney cruise can be educational?
I found this one http://www.themouseforless.com/downloads/kids/SchoolExcuse/SE1.shtml
but its more for Disney World

Thanks in advance

 

[brucechase]

I know it varies state to state, but a vacation is not a substitute for school. I wouldn't think this would be excused no matter how you spin it. If it doesn't bother you to take your kids out of school, then why does it bother you for them to have an unexcused absence?

 

[itutorfortravel]

i have one that someone shared with me awhile back...surprisingly, this person was able to think of many educational aspects of a cruise. gotta take dd to school, but i will look for it when i get back...

 

[itutorfortravel]

Anyone have a good letter about how a Disney cruise can be educational?
I found this one http://www.themouseforless.com/downloads/kids/SchoolExcuse/SE1.shtml
but its more for Disney World

Thanks in advance

Hi, just sent you a PM...

 

[dreamcometrue]

I know it varies state to state, but a vacation is not a substitute for school. I wouldn't think this would be excused no matter how you spin it. If it doesn't bother you to take your kids out of school, then why does it bother you for them to have an unexcused absence?

I work in an elementary school office and no matter how you would spin it, a week of vacation would be an unexcused absence.

 

[karibritt01]

Our district will excuse it if it is educational. They call it life experience. Depending on the teacher or principal, they may have to write a report about what they saw/did/learned.

Brucechase... the difference in wanting an excused absence is whether or not the kids are allowed to make up work.

 

[cmom]

My kids are blessed that our School District gives the kids 10 day off for excused "educational Vacation"

I know when we move to Fl next year this will be a prob. We took them out the full 10 days to cruise to Honduras, Guatamala, GC, and Coz, What a great education they had.

I think its great to take them out if travel is involved. What better learning then hands on and really seeing how the other countries or places live and work.

It should be up to the parents . And they must have completed assignments upon so much time after their return.

If they get sick they miss school to. They send these kids home for almost nothing from the Nurses office. At least this way they are learning something they would never get even in school.

 

[brucechase]

Ok, not trying to start a problem here, but if all these Disney Cruises and Disney vacations are so educational, then why not leave them in school and take these educational trips when they are out of school. That way they get the benefit of learning in school and learning during their summer/winter/fall breaks.

 

[disneykibbes5]

For us it is the expense and work. It is cheaper to travel durring the school year. But not only that. My DH works in a field where Summer and Christmas is a no-no to ask off. No employees are allowed to ask for time off then. So we have to work around that.


We have never had a problem taking the kids out of school for vacation. We always take the last week in September. THe school has always let the girls make up their work even though the absense was excused. We do attend a private school and I don't know if that makes a difference. We also have the kids do a journal why they are gone. The 5 year old draws pics and the 8 year old writes about her day and draws pics to show her friends what she did when she goes back to class.

 

[mmouse37]

Ok, not trying to start a problem here, but if all these Disney Cruises and Disney vacations are so educational, then why not leave them in school and take these educational trips when they are out of school. That way they get the benefit of learning in school and learning during their summer/winter/fall breaks.

number one reason is cost....it is much cheaper to take a child out of school and do a cruise in the non peak periods than to go during high peak periods. Cost is major factor when we plan vacations and our kids are all grown, but still a big consideration.

We took all three of our kids out of school every year up to and including high school for various vacations (mostly DCL) and they have had no ill effects from it. they make up their work they come home and get right back in the swing of things. All three are wonderful, productive citizens who have a deep appreciation of travel and the benefits thereof. Our youngest who is still in college just finished a 4 month study abroad program in London, completely by herself. She knew no one else going and traveled completely alone.....she met wonderful people from all over the world and I really think she would not have had the confidence to do that if not for all the travel she had previously. While in London she took side trips to Switzerland, Wales, Ireland, Italy, France and the Netherlands which expanded her global appreciation even more!! She got to work London Fashion Week this Spring and was invited back to London by the show organizers to work London Fashion Week this fall (her interest is Fashion Show Production). She will miss some classes in college but the experience and contacts she made and will make in London is something you can't learn in a classroom. Sorry I got off on a tangent but I was just trying to show how life experience can often be better than classroom study.

Every family has to decide for themselves if this is the right choice. For our family it was. Obviously if there is a child stuggling with school taking them out would not be the wise choice.

 

[itutorfortravel]

i am a former high school teacher and i now work as a private tutor part time so i have experience from the educator's perspective as well as the parents'.

first let me say that we are planning to take dd out of school for 5 days during this school year for a disney cruise. boy, are we excited!!!

i will have to say that i will be much more hesitant to take dd out of school once she gets to the year that standardized testing begins (3rd grade in our state)...plus, when she gets into the higher grades it is harder to keep up when you miss a significant amount of time from school and it should not be a burden on the teacher for the child to make up work...i have to say that i really don't think that is fair to the teacher and i wouldn't want to do that to them. after all, i need them on my side if my child starts to struggle at some point and so i don't want to be making their lives difficult so that i can go have fun! (i will also mention that i ended up tutoring 2 kids one year who fell behind in their math classes in middle school because they had missed a full week of school to go on vacation - one to WDW!)

however, at my dd's age 1st grade) i feel that she will not miss too much academically speaking that she can't make up. she is a bright girl and performs above grade level. my hesitation at this age is the absence policy and worrying about missing too many days that would jeopardize promotion. that is why we have booked our trip more towards the end of the school year so i can gauge absences further into the year...if we have too many absences by the PIF date we will just move our trip to another time.

the bottom line is that it is the parents' decision as to what works best for them and their children. there are lots of different things to consider and what works best for some may not work best for others. as long as you consider all angles of it and feel that the end result will be positive both for your trip and your child's education, then i don't see the harm in it!

 

[Magic3forme]

at our school we just have to fill out a form saying why our children will be out of school. some parents get slack from our principal. He always tells us to have a good time. ( it helps I do fundraising for the school).


We take our kids out every year. It is cheaper and less crowded at the parks, not to mention cooler. we might stop next year since our daughter will be in middle school.

 

[2disneydads]

We're taking our DD (age 5) out of kindergarten for an EC Magic cruise in March 2009. 1 Disney Dad is a college biology professor and we always have traveled during his spring break week, which is our only full travel week from New Years until the end of summer school in August. We'll not do that again after kindergarten, and we know that we are resigned to schedules that do not match. We'll make this an opportunity for her to learn and not just have fun. We made the arrangements initially thinking that she would be enrolled in an independent school where the spring breaks lined up, but she really wanted to go to the public school. We'll be taking a few long weekends to make up for the missing spring break week.

 

[karibritt01]

Ok, not trying to start a problem here, but if all these Disney Cruises and Disney vacations are so educational, then why not leave them in school and take these educational trips when they are out of school. That way they get the benefit of learning in school and learning during their summer/winter/fall breaks.

I am lucky in the respect that my kids are in year round school. They have a 3 week break in January, April, July, and October. For us, Jan is out because my business is slow over Christmas and we are broke from Christmas... so no way we could vacation then. April and July are just out of our price range. Oct worked out perfectly.

My kids did miss a week of school last year to go to Chicago with their grandparents. I felt it was important to spend that time with the grandparents, as they are aging quickly, and won't be able to do things like that with my kids much longer. While there, they went to a train museum, some museum in downtown, and basically got quite a bit of education outside of the classroom. I did not clear this trip with the principal ahead of time, and sent in a note when they returned. It was excused with no problems.

 

[brucechase]

I wasn't debating about how great life experiences are. If they are great during school, then they are great during vacation. As for the original question, my letter would then be something like:

Dear teacher, We are taking our child out of class to go on a Disney vacation because it is cheaper and more convienent now than during the school break. Please excuse his/her absence.

 

[MommyMinnie]

Ok, not trying to start a problem here, but if all these Disney Cruises and Disney vacations are so educational, then why not leave them in school and take these educational trips when they are out of school. That way they get the benefit of learning in school and learning during their summer/winter/fall breaks.

Ummm, check the price difference between July and Late September. Then you will know what the big deal is.

 

[karibritt01]

Well no wonder your absences aren't excused!

 

[cdhheidi]

Sure makes me thankful we homeschool!!! I only have to answer to our principal (aka DAD!) and our teacher (aka ME!). Besides, so much of our travel includes some great education. Last year I had one of our sons research the westward expansion and plan an oregon trail trip that we followed from St Louis to Boise over the course of 5 weeks... he planned everything from the hotels, the places we visited, the finances, did the map reading (yes, we got lost a few times! LOL!) and it was a terrific experience for us all!

 

[MommyMinnie]

The real trouble in our district is a massive dropout problem. Unexcused absenses are a early sign of dropouts. Who gets blamed for this? The parents? No, the school administration. So, If we take the kids out for vacation (unexcused) it's written up. Five unexcused absenses in a year and they get a truant letter in their permanent file.

FYI If I take DD out for a Dentist, Dr. or Eye appointment I have to bring back a note from the Doctor as proof that we went.

DD is in Probe classes (advanced) and is doing fine. We are carerful to keep her unexcused absenses low and controlled.

Still, If we didn't go during the school year we wouldn't be able to go at all.

Last year we got lucky and our spring break fell during an off season time period.

 

[brucechase]

Ummm, check the price difference between July and Late September. Then you will know what the big deal is.

I know the price difference. I don't want my children to miss school so I plan around that. If I can't afford it, well so be it. But to try to spin a Disney cruise as so educational is stretching it -in my opinion (or maybe we will have just a huge wealth of highly education people in 10-15 years because of all this cruising ). I also (as you can tell) am more inclined just to tell it like it is. If you don't feel the need for that, that is up to you.

Don't get me wrong, I can tell there are a lot of people getting red under the collar reading my views. But they are just that, MY opinion. No one has to justify to me why they think a cruise would be a great life experience. I've debated many times on taking my children out of school to save money. I concluded that I would work around the school breaks.

By the way karibritt01, I like the saying by your name as we debate educational stuff.