School Letter

[TeresaBelle]

We leave in 20 days for WDW!!!

I'm trying to compose a letter to DD9's teacher(s). Does this sound okay?

Dear Teacher(1),

DD will be out of school Dec. 1 – 5, 2008, for a family trip to Walt Disney World! If you are able to send home any work that she will miss beforehand I will see that DD completes it while we are gone. If not, DD will complete all makeup work in a timely fashion upon our return. Please share this note with Teacher(2) and Teacher(3), as I know DD visits their classrooms for reading and math.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you,



TeresaBelle
email
work#

I've seen a letter somewhere on the DIS before, it was really long and talked about the educational benefits of WDW and all, but I can't find it now.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!

 

[stace1214]

That letter is absolutely fine. Short and to the point, it's really not necessary to give any more information than that. As a teacher, I would chuckle if recieved a long, drawn out letter about the educational benefits of WDW. Have a great trip!

 

[K and K's Mommy]

That is about exactly what my letter said only I didn't put in where we were going. I also told the secretary who is in charge of attendance because we are suppose to call in every day there is an absence.

I had no problems at all with either teacher. We did have to have Sunday afternoon school at my house upon returning. I thought we would get some done at Disney, but you know, we just didn't!

 

[sndfan]

Sounds wonderful, but if I were you, I'd probably change the one sentence to read, "I am sending copies of this letters to Teacher 2 and Teacher 3 since I know Soandso has them for Math, etc." ...that way you are not making extra work for the teacher.

Have a wonderful time on your trip!

 

[slo]

Yep....sounds fine!!!

My letter just said the dates my DD would be out of town, and any makeup work would be appreciated. I don't go into any details, because it doesn't matter what I say, I always get the same nasty letter mailed to me from the principal

 

[TeresaBelle]

Thanks for all of the advice and well wishes. This is our second trip to Disney, the first was in May 2004, when DD was in pre-school so it was no big deal missing a week. Her 10th b-day is 12/2 and we've always wanted to see Disney done up for Christmas! We are so excited!!

 

[angeluna]

Going to send about the same note.

Just wondering, though, have any of you had problems with being threatened with truency? Our sons friend missed 5 days due to illness and they got a letter about being watched for truency. Kind of scared me. How serious a threat is this? We are in Texas.

 

[annhjk]

We leave in 20 days for WDW!!!

I'm trying to compose a letter to DD9's teacher(s). Does this sound okay?

Dear Teacher(1),

DD will be out of school Dec. 1 – 5, 2008, for a family trip to Walt Disney World! If you are able to send home any work that she will miss beforehand I will see that DD completes it while we are gone. If not, DD will complete all makeup work in a timely fashion upon our return. Please share this note with Teacher(2) and Teacher(3), as I know DD visits their classrooms for reading and math.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you,



TeresaBelle
email
work#

I've seen a letter somewhere on the DIS before, it was really long and talked about the educational benefits of WDW and all, but I can't find it now.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!

From a teacher - PERFECT. The one on the web that you were talking about is really extreme. Other teachers that I've shown it to just laugh at it. We know you're going to Disney for fun family time (most of the time). I just told the teacher's at conferences we were going and she volunteered to tutor 6 year old

 

[Alesia]

Going to send about the same note.

Just wondering, though, have any of you had problems with being threatened with truency? Our sons friend missed 5 days due to illness and they got a letter about being watched for truency. Kind of scared me. How serious a threat is this? We are in Texas.

It depends on your school district.

 

[Q-man]

Going to send about the same note.

Just wondering, though, have any of you had problems with being threatened with truency? Our sons friend missed 5 days due to illness and they got a letter about being watched for truency. Kind of scared me. How serious a threat is this? We are in Texas.

It has been on the books here in Texas since the mid 90s that more than 2 consecutive days unexcused absence can be considered parent aided truancy and punishable by a $200 per day per student fine. Our kid's school district, Fort Bend ISD-a Houston burb, has started enforcing it this year. Needless to say it is causing an uproar among parents. I can see it for high school kids but not elementary kids. It sucks. I think it is a fund raising tool for the school district. It was bad enough that the Texas Legislature monkeyed around with the school calender when we used to be able to do Disney in the last 2 weeks of May when most of the rest of the country was still in school.

You need to pull up your local school districts website and read what their policy is as each district decides how they want to enforce that part of the law.

TEC § 25.093. Parent Contributing to Truancy
(a) If a warning is issued as required by Section 25. 095(a), the parent with criminal negligence fails to require the child to attend school as required by law, and the child has absences for the amount of time specified under Section 25.094, the parent commits an offense.

 

[dizneedoll]

It has been on the books here in Texas since the mid 90s that more than 2 consecutive days unexcused absence can be considered parent aided truancy and punishable by a $200 per day per student fine. Our kid's school district, Fort Bend ISD-a Houston burb, has started enforcing it this year. Needless to say it is causing an uproar among parents. I can see it for high school kids but not elementary kids. It sucks. I think it is a fund raising tool for the school district. It was bad enough that the Texas Legislature monkeyed around with the school calender when we used to be able to do Disney in the last 2 weeks of May when most of the rest of the country was still in school.

You need to pull up your local school districts website and read what their policy is as each district decides how they want to enforce that part of the law.

That really PMO!! If a parent wants to take their kid out of school for vacation or for whatever, it's their business. I hate this kind of govt intrusion into our lives.

To the OP...I wouldn't tell the teacher where you are going. It's none of their business!!

 

[minnie2]

It sounds fine. I told both my kids(dd9 3rd grade and DS6 1st) teachers in person where we were going and they were fine. Then I just wrote down the dates for the secretary in their school office. No biggie.
My ds6 teacher said he would miss a spelling test and she would just give me the words for him when we got back but not the test but I insisted him to be tested on the I even offered to come in and give him the test so he wouldn't be short a test
Both teachers wanted to have the kids write about their trip and I love that idea. I am sure they will get work when we get home which is fine!

 

[delmar411]

Going to send about the same note.

Just wondering, though, have any of you had problems with being threatened with truency? Our sons friend missed 5 days due to illness and they got a letter about being watched for truency. Kind of scared me. How serious a threat is this? We are in Texas.

We have last year and I'm expecting the same letter after we get back from our Dec trip. Only that letter will probably be followed up by a visit after I pull DD for a 2nd week in the spring. They are obsessive about calling in for absences but I never think to do it because she's in grade school, it's not like she's out skipping classes!

I'm not really sure how serious they are about these things here but I keep telling DD she can't be sick or anything or miss any days for anything else cause I don't want the truant officer at my door!

 

[sashagiselle]

I think I will use your letter, DD will be missing the same days! I'm kind of nervous because here they were out for 12 days due to "IKE" so I'm expecting an attitude. Good luck with the letter!

 

[star sweeper]

Going to send about the same note.

Just wondering, though, have any of you had problems with being threatened with truency? Our sons friend missed 5 days due to illness and they got a letter about being watched for truency. Kind of scared me. How serious a threat is this? We are in Texas.

This varies greatly by state and district. I taught 7th grade in a 6-8 middle school and anything other than illness, doctor appointment, or death of a family member was unexcused. The students could make up the work to make sure they understood concepts missed and be tutored on them, but none of the work counted for a grade. Once you had 3 unexcused days you got a nasty letter, after 7 days you could be reported to the district for investigation.