Taking teen out of high school for a week

[4orm]

As a kid that was taken out of school for travel, I was fine - from elementary through college. As a parent we already are planning on regular travel with our daughter now and what she's school age. I find travel a fantastic way to learn. Not all Disney or resort vacations. Some, but mostly seeing areas and life styles that vary from our own. Because of this, we know it's important to find schools and understand this. Some do, others do not. It's not all a one fit rule. Every family is different as is each individual. You can read many different people accounts but only you will know what will work best for your situation. If you do go, why not get your child to take in a YES Disney program? They seem fun and educational!

 

[drag n' fly]

Really? Regular teenagers that are going to be engineers? I have worked for 20 plus years with almost every kind of engineer and I can tell you each and every one of them has been at least extremely intelligent if not borderline genius.

Maybe you are underestimating your kids.

PS. I don't care what educational level my kids report card stated, I would still travel with them.

Yes really..normal kids. No they are not pulling 90 plus averages in their classes. They come from a family line of P.Eng some even have Doctorates and nope they are not geniuses. Is dh smart? Yes of course he is smart he is an international expert in his field of engineering but he struggled in University also. He just happened to be really good at math. Heavy load thirty level courses simply cannot be a luxury to miss for my kids. To each his own

 

[slmickey94]

My daughter will be in 2nd grade next year. I wanted to take her to WDW, but was wondering about taking her out of school for the trip. We are planning an October trip. At first I was find with it but a friend made me think twice I guess. Are the teachers usually good about kids being taken out for a WDW trip. My daughter is a good student and make straight A's. We live in ascension parish in Louisiana. Has anyone had experience here with that. I know her absence will be unexcused. She would only miss three days but I would miss the Teacher parent conference. Going to Disney in October would save us money. Plus! The crowds wouldn't be bad either.

Thanks,

 

[pxlbarrel]

Yes really..normal kids. No they are not pulling 90 plus averages in their classes. They come from a family line of P.Eng some even have Doctorates and nope they are not geniuses. Is dh smart? Yes of course he is smart he is an international expert in his field of engineering but he struggled in University also. He just happened to be really good at math. Heavy load thirty level courses simply cannot be a luxury to miss for my kids. To each his own

As an engineer myself, I can, unfortunately, confirm that we are not all geniuses. LOL. What we do learn is to pretend to be geniuses.

I wasn't a bad student but I wasn't getting a 90 average either. I think that had I been given the opportunity to travel during my last years of high school, I would have floundered in my studies. Not because I was stupid but because my study habits just weren't suited for catching up. If I had better habits, I probably would have been ok (yeah, darn Dallas and Dynasty and Falcon Crest!)

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

I am reading through all these posts, and I'm thinking to myself....obviously, I am raising an oddball (not that I didn't already know that....my guy often marches to the beat of his own drum.....in a good way! lol).

Jake wouldn't want to miss any school, not even for a fab family vacation (and he loves to travel as much as we do). He wouldn't want to be squeezing in homework after a tiring day at the parks, or be working his butt off on the plane either on our way there or on our way home. That just wouldn't seem like a "vacation" to him. He would much rather go on school breaks (summer, Christmas, March Break) and figure out ways to beat the crowds than to fret about catching up on his studies while he's supposed to be enjoying some fun in the sun.

Now, to be fair.....as with drag 'n fly's kiddos, he's no genius (he's an honour student, but with an average in low 80's rather than the high 90's) so maybe that's the difference. He also carries a very heavy volunteer and sports load throughout the school year, so his free time upon arrival home (when the final "catch up" would occur) is limited at best.

We were very excited about this year's school calendar, as it allowed us to get away over the Christmas break (since the kids didn't go back to school until January 9th). Once he entered high school, we had resigned ourselves to being summer travellers, so this was a wonderful opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

I am just happy to read posts from each of you detailing how your kids love to travel with their parents. I have more people seem shocked that Jake really and truly "likes" our family getaways (I guess they must think we bind and gag him to get him on the plane ). Teenager or no, our boy really enjoys our family time together. I just hope that never changes!!

 

[Disney-Chick]

I have been stressing to my husband who keeps telling me not to worry that it's only a vacation, so coming here I know everyone would understand....here is my story.

My daughter is in grade 9 now, so HS next year. We have gone to DW 10 times since 2006. We have been talking about going to Disneyland in October of this year. Then the HS went to visit my daughter's school and told them that if they do not miss more than 6 days of excused absence then they may qualify to have an exam excempt. So DD comes home and tells me she is not missing any school that she wants to miss an exam. That's fine, she can stay with my family and they will get her to school. Then my in-laws throw out that they are going to DW in January so we thought maybe go with them (again my daughter won't go). But now im stressing because I really want to do DL, but it would be nice to do DW with the in-laws. Then I think, what if my DD changes her mind and she wants to go, and we decide to do DL and book flights? Usually when we do DW we drive it so that wouldn't be an issue. So after finding this site I call DH and tell him all about it. All he does is laugh and tell me to stop stressing. How can I? I am an organized person who likes to have all planned.

I guess it's good to see my DD want to stay and have her work done but im stressed and DH does not understand or thinks it's funny. I also feel bad about leaving DD as we have never been away on our own. I am excited about it & stressed all at the same time. I think it frustrates me more as well that DH keeps saying not to stress....how does one stop this?!?!?!

Thanks for reading my rant. I do feel a bit better.

 

[pacostrano]

I use to go to Disney almost every year with my parents in the 90's and beginning of 2000 in January and it was like for 2 to 3 weeks. what i did is I was bringing homework to be able to do some school stuff there and i was never late.

 

[Carina]

Planning to take my 3 kids ( including oldest who will be in grade 12) out of school in September.

They will be there for the first week of school ( They go back the day after Labor day) then miss the 2nd week of school plus 1-2 days out of either the first or 3rd week ( trip is probably going to be 11 days)

All they have asked is that they dont miss the first 2 days so they can get their classes sorted out.

I figure this is the best time as then they have the rest of the semester to catch up and I don't have to pay all that money to travel when schools are out of session and stand in too-long lines.

 

[fan1080]

My daughter will be in 2nd grade next year. I wanted to take her to WDW, but was wondering about taking her out of school for the trip. We are planning an October trip. At first I was find with it but a friend made me think twice I guess. Are the teachers usually good about kids being taken out for a WDW trip. My daughter is a good student and make straight A's. We live in ascension parish in Louisiana. Has anyone had experience here with that. I know her absence will be unexcused. She would only miss three days but I would miss the Teacher parent conference. Going to Disney in October would save us money. Plus! The crowds wouldn't be bad either.

Thanks,

You may want to check into your school district's regulations. I have read that some in the USA are very strict on unexcused absences.

Most school districts in Canada, if not all, don't have anywhere near the same consequences as in some locations in the states.

 

[fan1080]

In response to taking children out of school for vacation...

Each child is different, doing so will have a completely different affect from one child to another.

We have done it 5 times. Elementary school years was the easiest to miss for our daughters. As they moved up into High School (grades 10-12) it was much more difficult to get caught up. The toughest was in grade 12 for our oldest daughter. She struggled to get caught up in math, even with the aide of a tutor.

But, I would still do it again. There is so much more to life lessons than just school.

 

[drag n' fly]

I have a question. What trip is so important that you would be willing to pull your kids out of school continually. Now if this was a once in a lifetime trip I can see the point. However I see many parents pulling their kids out year after year after year just to go back to Disney? What life lesson are we teaching our kids by continually pulling our kids out of school to vacation?

 

[LSmith]

Well, my kids have walked part of the Great Wall of China, toured extensively through China and Hong Kong, visited the Great Pyramids of Egypt, stayed in Cairo and Alexandria, toured the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey, seen Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, visited the Louvre museum and tons of other museums there, visited the Acropolis and Parthenon in Greece, hiked through the Grand Canyon, know what paradise is via Hawaii.

Etc.

They have visited Vatican City, the Coliseum and St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome.

They've also travelled to Malta, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany.

They have also been to 8 provinces and over 30 states.

They have been extensively through the Caribbean islands.

How's that for an education outside of the classroom?

On top of that they have visited every Disney park in the world except in Japan. That is next.

They've been to Florida over 13 times. Lost count.

To answer your question, we are teaching them that there is much, much, much more to life than classroom learning.

Next is a family vacation to California for fun, fun and more fun!

We love our travel life and the classroom cannot come close to replicating what our kids are learning.

Our summer travel is to Nova Scotia so all other travel is during the school year or extended March Breaks.

Furthermore, my kids never, ever, ever do homework on our trips. It is done before or after never during.

They are honour students. And NORMAL.

 

[drag n' fly]

World travellers who are normal honour roll students. Yup sounds like a normal childhood to me. How many people actually live like that?
I never once questioned the value of learning while travelling. I just cant imagine how a kid can travel that much and maintain honour roll status. Dang maybe if I had done the opposite and pulled them out of school more often the life experiences they had would have made them better people and students (yes...that would be tongue in cheek). Sounds like you have a fantastic life and great kids. Congrats on a job well done!
Oh well to each his own.

 

[Bonniec]

I have a question. What trip is so important that you would be willing to pull your kids out of school continually. Now if this was a once in a lifetime trip I can see the point. However I see many parents pulling their kids out year after year after year just to go back to Disney? What life lesson are we teaching our kids by continually pulling our kids out of school to vacation?

We just pulled our kids out last month for a week at Disney. And we have seasonal passes, live only an hour and a half away, and go at least 1- times per month. I don't know if they learned any life lessons from having a week long vacation with no school, but we bonded and had a blast as a family.

I have twin seniors who are taking 5 AP classes each and a kindergartener. My little one was no problem. My older two had to do some scrambling to keep up since they are both honor roll. But they did it. I can say I probably would have waited until summer if any of the 3 had been struggling in school. But since they weren't, I had no problems taking them out and have no regrets.

 

[npcougar]

You might check and see what testing is going on in May. Some districts do end of the year tests before they take their finals.

 

[EmJay2001]

My DH traveled extensively with his family growing up. They went away twice a year since he was about 5 (his dad was a family doctor that did home births so was extremely busy all year). This was very important to them and they still talk about all their wonderful trips. From cheap driving trips to expensive cruises around the Greek Islands. He never was taken out of school. I don't plan on taking our kids out either, our first WDW vacation is at the end of August. Not ideal because of the temperature. And he of all people could have missed school if needed. Not a genius but pretty darn close . His parents thought school was just as important and so worked around the school year.

 

[LSmith]

World travellers who are normal honour roll students. Yup sounds like a normal childhood to me. How many people actually live like that?
I never once questioned the value of learning while travelling. I just cant imagine how a kid can travel that much and maintain honour roll status. Dang maybe if I had done the opposite and pulled them out of school more often the life experiences they had would have made them better people and students (yes...that would be tongue in cheek). Sounds like you have a fantastic life and great kids. Congrats on a job well done!
Oh well to each his own.

Sounds like sour grapes and you don't believe me? Sorry, would you like me to post my kid's report cards?

Our kids aren't the only ones living this life. Maybe you should dig your head out of the sand.

 

[EmJay2001]

Off topic I know, but I did notice in university the students that were naturals did not seem to do so well when they hit university. University is a lot different than high school, the expectations and curriculum. Those that did not establish good study habits in high school had a very hard time catching up. But that is just my experience when I got my degree in math and computer science many, many, many moons ago .

 

[LSmith]

Off topic I know, but I did notice in university the students that were naturals did not seem to do so well when they hit university. University is a lot different than high school, the expectations and curriculum. Those that did not establish good study habits in high school had a very hard time catching up. But that is just my experience when I got my degree in math and computer science many, many, many moons ago .

Not sure whom you are referring to but my kids study habits are excellent. Naturally so.

Of course, you can choose to believe it or not.

 

[EmJay2001]

Not sure whom you are referring to but my kids study habits are excellent. Naturally so.

Of course, you can choose to believe it or not.

Nah, it was a general statement. My DH study habits were excellent too, much to my dismay at times (married my high school sweetheart, still together 24 years later). I liked movies more than physics . Now I value sleep most of all .