Shocked

[aubriee]

Next week my son has Monday off for Columbus Day, and Friday off for teachers In Service day, so he will only miss three days. He is a senior this year, but I cleared through the high school before I bought plane tickets. I guess next week will be crazy too.

I hope not! We arrive Saturday and will be there Oct 9th-17th.

 

[bonnaroomama]

We always go in December (except this year) and have since I was in school (in the 80s-90s). My parents would arrange it with our teachers and the principal every other year; we took our homework for two to three weeks with us and were home schooled. We had to really bust our buns or our folks would get nailed on truancy, but they always managed to swing it. The last year that I was in h.s., I went to private school, so it was easier to arrange.

We always see a lot of kids there, too, although of course the park attendance is lower. But people aren't on fall break yet when we go.

Mouseforless even has a letter you can print and send to your child's teacher explaining what they will learn at Disney and essentially asking for mercy on their attendance.

 

[Greaser69]

Our very first trip to DW was mid-October a few years ago. We planned this time thinking the crowds would be fairly light. Oh no!! It was so packed we all held hands because I was afraid we would get separated and never see each other again. There were times it became rather scary. I too wondered why there were so many kids in the parks, they couldn't all be homeschoolers! LOL But it seemed that most of the people we talked to were from Europe, so it made me think they must have some sort of break at this time. I didn't realize so many schools have a fall break as well. The schools out here don't have such a break, except for Thanksgiving.

Germany for example has 2 weeks Fallbreak in October for example.
And we are not allowed to take our kids out of school at other times. (It is Law in Germany and you can get on serious trouble if you take your kids out of School for a reason like spending a holiday)
And a thing like Homeschool doesn't exist here. Every Kid has to go to a public or Private School (90% Public).
My daughter has her Fall break starting this Saturday and we come for a 13 day trip at Sunday.
As the other School Break times in Germany are Eastern (2 weeks), Summer (6 weeks), Christmas (1 1/2 week) are much more crowded times and/or have not the best weather, Fall Break is the best time to Visit. We did it the last 2 years and I found crowds very OK. With a little bit of planning and Fastpasses.

 

[smidgy]

wow! that is great info! thanks to my fellow disney friends form across the ocean. for that info!

 

[smidgy]

We always go in December (except this year) and have since I was in school (in the 80s-90s). My parents would arrange it with our teachers and the principal every other year; we took our homework for two to three weeks with us and were home schooled. We had to really bust our buns or our folks would get nailed on truancy, but they always managed to swing it. The last year that I was in h.s., I went to private school, so it was easier to arrange.

We always see a lot of kids there, too, although of course the park attendance is lower. But people aren't on fall break yet when we go.

Mouseforless even has a letter you can print and send to your child's teacher explaining what they will learn at Disney and essentially asking for mercy on their attendance.

I agree that I can teach a child TONS in one week at WDW. living seas? rafikis? I know more about herpetology than most teachers, and can point it out there. universe of energy? talk about the history of comunication in spaceship earth? culture? world showcase?
etc etc.
I think I teach my grandson more in 3 hours (he is 5), while we play chess (yes , chess) while we discuss the bible, and animals, and watch movies (yes, discuss what we watch) and play Sorry (he learns to add, and figures out that he is 4 spaces from "home" but, he says"grandma, the only 4 card is "backwards", so I need a.. hmm, 3 card and a 1 card.
don't worry about taking your little ones out of school for a week......

 

[princessmom29]

I agree that I can teach a child TONS in one week at WDW. living seas? rafikis? I know more about herpetology than most teachers, and can point it out there. universe of energy? talk about the history of comunication in spaceship earth? culture? world showcase?
etc etc.
I think I teach my grandson more in 3 hours (he is 5), while we play chess (yes , chess) while we discuss the bible, and animals, and watch movies (yes, discuss what we watch) and play Sorry (he learns to add, and figures out that he is 4 spaces from "home" but, he says"grandma, the only 4 card is "backwards", so I need a.. hmm, 3 card and a 1 card.
don't worry about taking your little ones out of school for a week......

You can absolutely teach things at WDW, but unless you are getting a copy of the lesson plan for that week you can't be sure you are replacing everything that was taught. If there was nothing that I had to worry about replacing I would have a serious problem with that. I have said it before on the DIS, but it bears repeating. If my child were in a school where I could take them out for a week and they would miss nothing of importance, I would be finding a new school because a week with nothing learned is absolutely unacceptable. I have no problem with pulling my child out and working with her on the material she missed, but if she were gone for a week and there was nothing to make up and no concepts missed then would definitely be questioning what was going on at school.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Yesterday at 10:45 all fast passes for Toy Story were gone. Wait time was 130 min.

That's not really that suprising. They're almost always gone by 11:00, noon at the latest.

 

[runningstitch]

When I taught fourth/fifth grade, I had a family that wanted to take their kid on a Disney Cruise for a week, and they were very concerned I would be upset. I responded with, "Wow, I am SO jealous! Go have fun!" I do think that once you get past elementary school the work is harder to make up, but for the younger ones...as long as it's not a testing week, and they are doing reasonably well in school, I say go for it. They are only young once, and school is not the only place where children learn. Remember that parents are VERY important teachers themselves. Just discuss it with the classroom teacher ahead of time. We're taking our daughter out of Kindergarten for four days in December to go to WDW, and speaking as a teacher, parent, and current doctoral student in education, I have no qualms about it.

 

[dqpowell]

That's not really that suprising. They're almost always gone by 11:00, noon at the latest.

Lately that's true -- but it's almost certainly because they (Disney) have adjusted the fastpass allocations in the recent past. Fastpasses for TSM used to last until about 1 pm on low-crowd days. This was true for every trip during a low-crowd season I have made since the ride opened. Now they're running out consistently before 11 even on low-crowd days, when rides like ToT and RnR have 10 or 20 minute peak wait times.

David

 

[ols386]

We are going to WDW the last week of this month, and we sort of planned it that way thinking that crowds might be lower at that time of year. From reading some of these posts, it sounds as though it might be busier and more crowded than I had originally thought.

 

[Racemom17]

For every trip I have pulled my kids out of school...anywere from 2 days to 6 days, depending on if I can coordinate it with days off for breaks, teacher workdays, etc.

The last think I worry about on my vacation is why there are so many other kids there and not in school. I enjoy the fact that we are there.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

First week of Oct and the park is Packed. I can't believe the number of kids here. What happened to school?

I totally agree. We just got back from a 9/26 - 10/3 trip and we were STUNNED by the number of people there. Seemed like summer. Every park, everywhere there were people. We used to go right after labor day when the parks were empty. I'll have to do that again because this was insane. It's one thing if you expect it, but after 2 years of super low crowds and no indication of high traffic, we were dumbfounded. We still had a great time but the crowd level was off the chart.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

When I taught fourth/fifth grade, I had a family that wanted to take their kid on a Disney Cruise for a week, and they were very concerned I would be upset. I responded with, "Wow, I am SO jealous! Go have fun!" I do think that once you get past elementary school the work is harder to make up, but for the younger ones...as long as it's not a testing week, and they are doing reasonably well in school, I say go for it. They are only young once, and school is not the only place where children learn. Remember that parents are VERY important teachers themselves. Just discuss it with the classroom teacher ahead of time. We're taking our daughter out of Kindergarten for four days in December to go to WDW, and speaking as a teacher, parent, and current doctoral student in education, I have no qualms about it.

Exactly right. This was the attitude from my DD's 1st grade teacher. The principal at the school year kickoff meeting even said that elementary school was the time to take these 'special trips' as she called them since middle school is a lot less flexible. I treasure this type of attitude. We did homework every morning and kept up. She didn't miss a thing and her childhood was enriched.

 

[cardramblues]

While I'm sure school is important to every parent there, there's also an importance that is called family.
I think a family vacation can and should trump school every now and then, as long as the kids are doing well in school, and attendance is regular I don't see there being a problem.
Well, other than some people being upset because it's throwing off their way of vacationing.
I'm sure the parents there are capable of making the decision of when and how they want to have their kids taken out for a short family vacation, did anyone think it could be that their kids are also in year round school....or maybe homeschooled?
Good thing no one here is making any quick judgements about kids "being out of school " without thinking there has to be a good reason.

Very well said.

 

[bakenatj]

Germany for example has 2 weeks Fallbreak in October for example.
And we are not allowed to take our kids out of school at other times. (It is Law in Germany and you can get on serious trouble if you take your kids out of School for a reason like spending a holiday)
And a thing like Homeschool doesn't exist here. Every Kid has to go to a public or Private School (90% Public).
My daughter has her Fall break starting this Saturday and we come for a 13 day trip at Sunday.
As the other School Break times in Germany are Eastern (2 weeks), Summer (6 weeks), Christmas (1 1/2 week) are much more crowded times and/or have not the best weather, Fall Break is the best time to Visit. We did it the last 2 years and I found crowds very OK. With a little bit of planning and Fastpasses.

No offense to you, I hope, but just another reason why I don't understand why some people want the USA to be like Europe.

 

[GCM]

Just wanted to say that one of our local school systems (East Tennessee) is on fall break this week. I know several families who are gone on vacation to various locations, so I imagine a lot of those kids aren't skipping school. However, we were there a little over a week ago and homeschool our son. Like some have posted not every child is missing school. We are just able to coordinate fall/spring breaks when it is good for us, which for us meant low crowd/free dining.

 

[Greaser69]

No offense to you, I hope, but just another reason why I don't understand why some people want the USA to be like Europe.

I don't know if it is in other European Countries the same (I guess in the UK it is not as I always see much people with Kids at Disney when there are no Holidays/Schoolbreaks).
I don't want to offend you also, but I see that the European School System seems to be more educating the one in the USA.
I talked with many Kids and US Students and mostly all say that the german standard if way higher and Kids learn much more here.
And this is germany only. You should see the Schools in the Scandinavian Countrys who are even much more better then the german ones.

 

[bakenatj]

I don't know if it is in other European Countries the same (I guess in the UK it is not as I always see much people with Kids at Disney when there are no Holidays/Schoolbreaks).
I don't want to offend you also, but I see that the European School System seems to be more educating the one in the USA.
I talked with many Kids and US Students and mostly all say that the german standard if way higher and Kids learn much more here.
And this is germany only. You should see the Schools in the Scandinavian Countrys who are even much more better then the german ones.

None taken. It's fine to have good education expectations and standards, but to make it law that you have to be there or else. Not what I call "The land of the Free."

 

[mariepapa]

None taken. It's fine to have good education expectations and standards, but to make it law that you have to be there or else. Not what I call "The land of the Free."

They don't claim to be the land of the free. And Germans are some of the best educated in the world.

 

[princessmom29]

None taken. It's fine to have good education expectations and standards, but to make it law that you have to be there or else. Not what I call "The land of the Free."

I think mabye they have it more right than we do. Personally, I think that if attendace laws were more strictly enforced and academis standards were higher them mabye it would contribute to graduating more students actually capable of being contributing members of society and fewer that end up reliant on public assistance because they are incapable of supporting themselves. IMO compulosry education is vital to creating a self supporting work force. I see the result of failure to attend school or to care what is being taught every day in the form of functionally illterate 17 year old high school freshmen. It really scares me to think that this is what we are putting into the work force, and it is really more common than anyone realizes. It is NOT an isolated incident, but a prevailing trend. More and more children are leaving high school undereducated and no one is doing anything about it for fear of stepping on someone's toes by saying "your kid needs to be in school, and needs to make an effort to learn something"