Shocked

[Sugar Jones]

We were at AK on Thursday (the 23rd)...we were able to ride Kali Rapids three times in a row without getting off...this was around 10:30am. We had not wait for the Safari. Primal Whirl had no wait early afternoon. Dinosaur had a 10 minute wait at 2pm. We also walked into Lion King, Nemo and Bugs Life with no wait and perfect seats. The 23rd was coinsidered a good park day for AK.

Aww that makes me so sad! My ds#2 who was scared of almost every ride LOVED Kali River Rapids, and wanted to ride it again so badly, but the line up was way too long. I know now for next time to get a hopper and get touring plans!

 

[DizBelle]

I agree that common sense should prevail.

Common sense tells me that each situation is different. As the person ultimately responsible for the raising of my children, I do believe that I can take the responsibility on myself to make an appropriate decision.

Do kids learn more on vacation than at school? I would hope not. That doesn't speak well for the education system. Can they have experiences that enrich their lives and teach them? Yes.

Our kids were taken out of school many times (including high school) for family vacations. When they were in high school, we discussed it with them, they helped decide and accepted the responsibility to keep up.

I have always found the teachers in our schools accepting of our decisions and never felt that they had a problem with it.

On another point, both kids were actively involved in school sports and when I count the number of classes they missed for hockey, football, cross country, lacrosse, band competitions, I think it far exceeds the family vacation time and those were school sanctioned and promoted events.

Everyone's situation is different. We really shouldn't berate anyone on their choices as we haven't walked in their shoes.

Common sense tells me that these decisions affect others besides the single student.

If someone pulls their child out of school for several days and the teacher has to make up a packet of work to send home either ahead of time or after the child returns, that is time the teacher is not spending on the rest of the class.

If the teacher has to repeat concepts taught in class when the student was out, that is affecting the rest of the class that is ready to move on to the next lesson.

If you want to take on 100% responsibility for teaching your child what they missed in class then go ahead and take them out. I do think it is unreasonable to expect or ask a teacher to take hours of their valuable time to catch your child up due to an absence that could have been easily avoided.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

There's a difference between having to miss school due to illness and missing school because you chose to not go at that time.

Missing school should be due to an unavoidable situation. Not because you chose that time to vacation.

If your schedules can't all line up to go at the same time, (e.g. "my job doesn't allow me to take time off during the summer or when the kids are out of school"), then I guess you just don't go away on extended length vacations. You make your family time after work/school and on the weekends or whenever your time off does coincide. You don't have to go away somewhere to have meaningful and valuable family together time.

There is indeed a difference but you didn't state that. You made a blanket statement about leaning concepts A-C and not being able to build upon them by missing. You didn't state reasons. Just as if my child missed for an unavoidable situation, I got the lesson plan and all the worksheets and we did the work. She had a test yesterday. Did fine. She and I can make up work for vacation just as if it was unavoidable. It's no different.

If your schedules can't all line up to go at the same time, (e.g. "my job doesn't allow me to take time off during the summer or when the kids are out of school"), then I guess you just don't go away on extended length vacations.

Tell me I read that wrong. Are you seriously trying to dictate to me when I can/can't take an extended length vacation? Seriously? I wonder where you learned your nerve..was that Concept B that you learned by never missing school? I can take vacation whenever we choose as long as I have made the appropriate arrangements and am not doing my child a disservice, which I am not.

The only thing you said that made a lick of sense was that you don't have to go away somewhere to have meaninful and valuable family time together. You're 100% right about that. But sometimes, we choose to. It's really quite that simple.

There are a number of people who have posted on this thread who seem to grasp the easy concept that situations are different, and each person can make his/her own decision. I hope that is something that you learned today.

 

[Sugar Jones]

Common sense tells me that these decisions affect others besides the single student.

If someone pulls their child out of school for several days and the teacher has to make up a packet of work to send home either ahead of time or after the child returns, that is time the teacher is not spending on the rest of the class.

If the teacher has to repeat concepts taught in class when the student was out, that is affecting the rest of the class that is ready to move on to the next lesson.

If you want to take on 100% responsibility for teaching your child what they missed in class then go ahead and take them out. I do think it is unreasonable to expect or ask a teacher to take hours of their valuable time to catch your child up due to an absence that could have been easily avoided.

Neither of my boys teacher's had to do an iota of extra work for us. I don't know if it's standard practice with other schools, but at our school the first of each month a newsletter is sent home with each child. It outlines what the kids will be working on in each subject for the month. So keeping my kids up to date while they were gone was simple. There are MANY websites you can print off worksheets, I photocopied their textbooks and printed off worksheets that pertain to what they were working on. It was hard and the teacher didn't need to do a thing. They resumed to the classroom with no issues. They did miss out on making artistic items for the local fall fair, but that wasn't a big deal, as we weren't home for the fair to see them anyway.

 

[DizBelle]

There is indeed a difference but you didn't state that. You made a blanket statement about leaning concepts A-C and not being able to build upon them by missing. You didn't state reasons. Just as if my child missed for an unavoidable situation, I got the lesson plan and all the worksheets and we did the work. She had a test yesterday. Did fine. She and I can make up work for vacation just as if it was unavoidable. It's no different.




Tell me I read that wrong. Are you seriously trying to dictate to me when I can/can't take an extended length vacation? Seriously? I wonder where you learned your nerve..was that Concept B that you learned by never missing school? I can take vacation whenever we choose as long as I have made the appropriate arrangements and am not doing my child a disservice, which I am not.

The only thing you said that made a lick of sense was that you don't have to go away somewhere to have meaninful and valuable family time together. You're 100% right about that. But sometimes, we choose to. It's really quite that simple.

There are a number of people who have posted on this thread who seem to grasp the easy concept that situations are different, and each person can make his/her own decision. I hope that is something that you learned today.

Re: bolded.... No, you are not doing YOUR child a disservice. But you may be doing the other children in the class a disservice by taking the teacher away from them (spending time putting together makeup work or spending class time repeating the lessons that s/he missed).

If you can do it (like the poster after you) without impacting the teacher or the rest of the class, go ahead. As soon as there is impact to other people, it is their business.

 

[tyniknate]

Frankly I dont know why this is debated over and over again. It is no ones business when I take my child out of school. I am a loving, caring, hard-working mother who provides clean clothes, hot meals, homework help, moral guidance and who works very hard for all of it. I will not apologize to anyone (teachers included) if the only way we can provide a family vacation is to have the kids miss 2 or 3 days of school. The work is always made up and the kids don't seem to suffer for having done it once every couple of years.

And as for parents being to blame for the state of the education of children.....I think some teachers had better take a look in the mirror. All I hear from a good portion of them (at least locally) is "gimme more money, more time off, more benefits, etc." They seem so involved in what they are not getting for themselves that I'm not sure how any teaching is being done.

We are going next Thanksgiving and I'm not apologizing to anyone or feeling guilty about it.

 

[Mickey Fliers]

Re: bolded.... No, you are not doing YOUR child a disservice. But you may be doing the other children in the class a disservice by taking the teacher away from them (spending time putting together makeup work or spending class time repeating the lessons that s/he missed).

If you can do it (like the poster after you) without impacting the teacher or the rest of the class, go ahead. As soon as there is impact to other people, it is their business.

Now you are really reaching. The same can be said of a teacher that has to take extra time with a child that constantly talks during class, or vomits, or pees his pants, or needs extra help buttoning his pants after using the restroom, or the helicopter mommy that insists on talking/emailing teacher all day long about Johnny's progress, or the kid who forgot his lunch and now teacher has to call Dad at work, or a billion other scenarios in which the teacher isn't able to give 100% un-interrupted attention to the class as a whole.

 

[Raenstoirm]

Every park is packed. We were here last year same time....about a third of the crowd then. It is shocking. Yesterday at 10:45 all fast passes for Toy Story were gone. Wait time was 130 min.

We were there last week and the parks were pretty dead....except for toy story. It was "sold out" by 10:30 EVERY day. We ended up having to wait in line for 90 minutes twice! We even got to walk-on Peter Pan a few times during our 9 days but never TSM.

 

[DizBelle]

Now you are really reaching. The same can be said of a teacher that has to take extra time with a child that constantly talks during class, or vomits, or pees his pants, or needs extra help buttoning his pants after using the restroom, or the helicopter mommy that insists on talking/emailing teacher all day long about Johnny's progress, or the kid who forgot his lunch and now teacher has to call Dad at work, or a billion other scenarios in which the teacher isn't able to give 100% un-interrupted attention to the class as a whole.

True. So, don't you think that the situations that could be easily avoided should be?

 

[maddiesdaddy]

Now you are really reaching. The same can be said of a teacher that has to take extra time with a child that constantly talks during class, or vomits, or pees his pants, or needs extra help buttoning his pants after using the restroom, or the helicopter mommy that insists on talking/emailing teacher all day long about Johnny's progress, or the kid who forgot his lunch and now teacher has to call Dad at work, or a billion other scenarios in which the teacher isn't able to give 100% un-interrupted attention to the class as a whole.

+1

Stole my words..and like everything else, Mickey got it 100% right.

 

[pooh136]

I'm always curious what people's perception of "Crowded" is...would anyone mind posting/or would the post starter have a picture to post? Thanks!

I think that everyone's perception of how crowded the parks are also depends on their park choices each day. OP has already stated that she went to DHS on a Fantasmic and EMH day, which would be crowded. Several other posters in this thread have commented on how crowded it was last week, but we were there 9/25-10/2, and thought the crowds were very low. We expected crowded restaurants because of free dining, and found it less crowded than when we were there April/May 2009.

There were only 2 times we felt that we encountered large crowds. The first was Wed at the MK for MSEP and Wishes (there were parties Tues and Thurs so this was the only day for us to see them with our schedule) but we had hopped there from Epcot, arriving around 7:00, because we knew it would be busy. THe second was on Saturday at MK (which we also expected because there had been parties Thurs and Fri) and we were there from rope drop until 1:00 just to do a few favorites. We had 4 GAD certificates to redeem for fastpasses, and only ended up using 3 because we just didn't need them. They were a godsend on our two DHS days (one EMH and one Fantasmic) where we used them for multiple rides on TSM.

 

[ccgirl]

Common sense tells me that these decisions affect others besides the single student.

If someone pulls their child out of school for several days and the teacher has to make up a packet of work to send home either ahead of time or after the child returns, that is time the teacher is not spending on the rest of the class.

If the teacher has to repeat concepts taught in class when the student was out, that is affecting the rest of the class that is ready to move on to the next lesson.

If you want to take on 100% responsibility for teaching your child what they missed in class then go ahead and take them out. I do think it is unreasonable to expect or ask a teacher to take hours of their valuable time to catch your child up due to an absence that could have been easily avoided.

Just wanted to add that it depends on the school. The school policy at my DD's school is that nothing is provided ahead of time. All class work/homework is put in the students box to be retrieved upon return from their vacation. The amount of time to make up the work is the same as the number of days they missed. For example, she is missing 7 school days so will have 7 days to make it up. No extra work for the teacher. If I thought for a second that she would have difficulty making it up, I wouldn't have her miss the classes. However, she has yet to score below a 90. The school has Iowa testing this week and the parents were told that unless there was a doctor's note; the child was not to miss for any reason including vacation.

As far as crowds, I'm beginning to learn all of the "secretly good" times to go are out of the bag. Especially with all of the great promotions they are running. We have the good fortunate to have gone once a year for the past few years so now we just make a list of 3 "must - do's" at each park. Anything more we can accomplish is just icing on the cake.

 

[princessmom29]

Frankly I dont know why this is debated over and over again. It is no ones business when I take my child out of school. I am a loving, caring, hard-working mother who provides clean clothes, hot meals, homework help, moral guidance and who works very hard for all of it. I will not apologize to anyone (teachers included) if the only way we can provide a family vacation is to have the kids miss 2 or 3 days of school. The work is always made up and the kids don't seem to suffer for having done it once every couple of years.

And as for parents being to blame for the state of the education of children.....I think some teachers had better take a look in the mirror. All I hear from a good portion of them (at least locally) is "gimme more money, more time off, more benefits, etc." They seem so involved in what they are not getting for themselves that I'm not sure how any teaching is being done.

We are going next Thanksgiving and I'm not apologizing to anyone or feeling guilty about it.

As a teacher, I am really , really bothered that more and more parents seem to feel that thier child's teachers are worthless. It I was in a school syatem where the teachers were truly like that I would be shouting it to who ever i could get to listen until it changed. Soemtimes I think bashing teachers is just a convinent excuse for going agianst school policy. ie, "That teacher is a lazy idiot so I will do what I want." I for one do everything in my power to se to it that my students get everything they can out of my class despite the fact that many of thier parents could care less wether they even show up, or think that school is worthless becuase teachers "don't do anything". It really saddens me to see this over and over agian when most of us really are doing our dead level best to see that the children in our charge are getting what they need from school. We shouldn't have to fight their parents to do it. Parents should be working with us, not agianst us. It is truly sad that the parent-teacher relationship has been amde into an adverserial power struggle in many cases. Some of that is due to icmoptent uncaring teachers. There is no denying that they exist, but at least here they are a small minority. At least some of it is also due to parents that feel they should never have to relinquish and degree of control to a teacher or school, or who have had a bad experience in the past and now believe all teachers are like the one bad one they have encountered.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

I think that everyone's perception of how crowded the parks are also depends on their park choices each day. OP has already stated that she went to DHS on a Fantasmic and EMH day, which would be crowded. Several other posters in this thread have commented on how crowded it was last week, but we were there 9/25-10/2, and thought the crowds were very low. We expected crowded restaurants because of free dining, and found it less crowded than when we were there April/May 2009.

There were only 2 times we felt that we encountered large crowds. The first was Wed at the MK for MSEP and Wishes (there were parties Tues and Thurs so this was the only day for us to see them with our schedule) but we had hopped there from Epcot, arriving around 7:00, because we knew it would be busy. THe second was on Saturday at MK (which we also expected because there had been parties Thurs and Fri) and we were there from rope drop until 1:00 just to do a few favorites. We had 4 GAD certificates to redeem for fastpasses, and only ended up using 3 because we just didn't need them. They were a godsend on our two DHS days (one EMH and one Fantasmic) where we used them for multiple rides on TSM.

I think I will follow you around next year! We were there for the exact same time (well, 9/26 - 10/3) and felt the crowds were so high!! We did go to the Halloween Party on Thursday which for our choice (low crowds) was worth the money! But Saturday at MK..where we spent most of the day, was CRAZY. We assumed Epcot would be busy for F&W so we stayed at MK...ugh. But still, we followed a similar plan the last 2 years without the crowds..but it was the busiest we have ever seen it. So, we'll have to do much better planning next year.

 

[Don Disney]

One thing is certain, I can NEVER get that time back (when they were young and I was alot younger).

If you have quality time at Disney, (or quality time anywhere), isn't that the most important thing? You and your kids don't live in a time bubble. They WILL get older and move on. Enjoy them while you can.

That is EXACTLY how DW and I feel about it!!!! They say "Great minds think alike"!!!

 

[bakenatj]

This is exactly what I am talking about when I say that most people don't get the dept of the problem. I am not talking about looking to graduate everyone college ready with a 3.5 GPA. I would just like the majority of high school graduates to be qualified to make change at McDonalds or read simple instructions. That is not happening on a HUGE scale! More and more students are leaving high school without the BASIC skills needed to hold down ANY job! Social security and welfare are going bankrupt under the weight of those who cannot or will not support themselves. Yes, if we all had parents that care this wouldn't be happening, but the reality is that there are many more parents who don't care out there than parents that do. I am arguing that if someone doesn't step in and insist that children get enough education to be self sufficient welfare and social security WILL collapse under the weight of those they support. It is not because we have too many people, but becuase we have too many people incapable and unwilling to be self sufficient.

I'm glad you feel that way, just how confident are you that the government can actually do that??? As for me, I know they will screw it up like they've messed up everything else they get involved in.

If it were up to me, you don't work, and do your job right, you don't eat! I know I'm not nice but sometimes you have to be hard with some people.

Look at me, getting off topic again. I guess I've always been a sucker for a good debate

 

[Snape]

I find it comical that people sitting at home can tell the OP it isn't busy in Magic Kingdom when she's there staring at the crowd. Then when the OP again states that the parks are packed, some people feel the need to give her 20 lashes because she "chose the wrong park" that day.

 

[Sarabi's Cubs]

My children's school has very strict policies about time off for vacation. No work given in advance and you take zeros for anything that you miss, no opportunity to make it up. Period. I did take them out of school for 4 days a few years ago for a Disney trip. They were in kindergarten and 2nd grade. It was a family trip with my siblings, their kids, and my parents for their 50th anniversary. Dad and one brother's job are tourism dependent so going in the summer was not an option and since we're spread all over the country, spring breaks were all different. We picked the week that affected the least kids and the youngest kids (mine). I would not trade that trip for anything and the zeros were well worth the memories of my kids at Disney with their grandparents and all of their cousins, but I won't be taking them out of school again. It would be way too stressful now that they're older.

 

[tndisneyfan]

I think more and more schools are getting a full week fall break in October. DS is out all this week with his break. Last year our break was more like mid October.

 

[dqpowell]

Then when the OP again states that the parks are packed, some people feel the need to give her 20 lashes because she "chose the wrong park" that day.

Not 20 lashes. Just pointing out a fact. When somebody reports that the the crowds in October are really bad, there are two possible explanations:

1. The crowds really are bad; the 'secret' is out; October is now just like July.

2. The person reporting bad crowds was at the most crowded park that day, while others were at other parks that were almost empty. Simplified: The person reporting bad crowds was at the wrong park.

I know which explanation makes more sense to me, especially given the number of people who have responded on this thread to say that they were there the same time and thought the crowds were very low.

David