I have taken my daughter out of school for about a week every year of K-7 so far. I am also a teacher. We both just took 8 days off to go on the WBTA cruise. It has not affected her academics in a negative way. She has a college reading level. She has never truly enjoyed math, but keeps As or Bs in the subject. Math was always one of my best subjects, so I am able to help her keep up with it while we are gone anyway. Most of her teachers and administrators have been very supportive of her going. She was able to use the knowledge she gained from visiting Pompeii last year for her History Day project and is using information learned from the Titanic experience in Cobh, Ireland this year for this year's History Day project. Going out and experiencing history has definitely made these projects more meaningful to her. We were at our local living history ranch today and she made a comment about something that I bet almost no other kids her age know because it was something unique that she learned on one of our cruises. I do agree that once she is in high school, we probably won't be able to continue though. We will see when the time comes in 2 years.