Taking the kiddos out of school for a WDW trip...

[JennyMarie821]

Where do your kids go to school?! I'm just waiting for a lawsuit to hit the news about this kind of thing. In the system I teach in, even if you have excessive absences, you can just get a waiver rubber stamped at the end of the year if your child is in good academic standing.

We live in SW PA about 45 mins south of Pittsburgh. Normally my kids don't miss a lot of school anyway so I'm hoping it won't be a problem to take them out.

 

[kangamangus]

What I think is so crazy is that parents have to worry about this yet every year you hear of kids who show up for a few months out of the year, don't even have the required amount of credits to graduate, are tardy three times a week and yet somehow get to graduation day. I'm talking of course about our town and neighboring towns but quite a few people I work with have kids who have missed a whole month of school, unexcused ect... and then somehow they have a "plan" to help make sure they can graduate on time. Heck even when I was in high school I can distinctly remember three kids in my class who were almost never in school, barely turned in their work and yet they graduated the same day as me! Of course now at 30 I still see them around town, unemployed, not doing much with their lives but I digress. My kids are straight A kids, never sick and if they miss 5 unexcused absences every other year then they will. I asked this very question a couple months ago but the more I talked to people, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was worrying for nothing. At least not around here.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

But it's gonna be really fudging it to say that the PRIMARY purpose is educational in nature.

That would be because it isn't.

I suggest to use your best BS skills and hope for the best.

 

[KingLlama]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Was reassured yesterday by a local teacher that this happens multiple times every year with little to no problem. As long as the kids are current on their work(they will be), and as long as the trip doesn't fall during testing weeks(it isn't), we should be fine.

The real "education" I want my kids to get out of this trip is them seeing how kick-*** their dad is at planning a Disney itinerary. Should serve them well when they grow up and plan trips of their own.

 

[lindaprvs]

I'm taking my kids out of school for 2 days in October to go to WDW. They are in 2nd and K. They have "fall Break" on M-W and will only miss Thursday and Friday. I"m not even going to bother with trying to get them excused.

 

[JennyMarie821]

What I think is so crazy is that parents have to worry about this yet every year you hear of kids who show up for a few months out of the year, don't even have the required amount of credits to graduate, are tardy three times a week and yet somehow get to graduation day. I'm talking of course about our town and neighboring towns but quite a few people I work with have kids who have missed a whole month of school, unexcused ect... and then somehow they have a "plan" to help make sure they can graduate on time. Heck even when I was in high school I can distinctly remember three kids in my class who were almost never in school, barely turned in their work and yet they graduated the same day as me! Of course now at 30 I still see them around town, unemployed, not doing much with their lives but I digress. My kids are straight A kids, never sick and if they miss 5 unexcused absences every other year then they will. I asked this very question a couple months ago but the more I talked to people, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was worrying for nothing. At least not around here.

I completely agree with this! I know personally of a couple kids like this who miss multiple days every single week and either graduated or get pushed through every year. Last year my dd was in kindergarten and missed 10 days of school (the most any of them have ever missed) because she was constantly sick and I got a letter in the mail about it. So I don't understand how these kids pass missing half the school year. They aren't doing these kids any favors.

 

[Jessupnorth]

We've taken our children out of school for a Disney Cruise, a WDW trip and will be taking them out again for another WDW trip-- each time for a week. One is in 4th, one is in 1st grade. It is a very common practice at their school-- even the principal, whose children attend the school, has done it! We do need to fill out a form and the absences are reported as 'unexcused', but that is about it. It doesn't affect their grades or eligibility to participate in anything and we make sure they are caught up on all work before we go.

 

[Schmeck]

You can't hold schools accountable for educating students and not hold parents accountable for getting their kids to school. Teachers are going to be evaluated based on student test scores, so how is it fair for them if kids are out on family vacations?

If you don't like the policy at your public school, then contact your public representatives. It's not the schools' fault that they have to have attendance policies.

To me, a Disney trip is not an educational experience in the sense meant by most school policies unless the parent spends 6 hours of the day developing an ed plan, making an assessment, giving the child the assessment and assessing the assessment. So, unless you have a test for the kid at the end of the trip, and it meshes well enough with the school curriculum so that an assessment at school covers the trip, I'd consider it an unexcused absence.

 

[yayornay]

I'm in northern AL, and was told last year by my Kindergartner's principal that we'd have an early intervention truancy hearing if we pulled him out 5 days to go to Disney. This apparently happens upon your 5th unexcused absence and the principal could not/would not excuse a Disney trip. Needless to say, we didn't pull him out (and I don't know that I really *believe* that would actually happen, but I didn't want to start off his school experience making waves with administration). BUT, you better believe if there was any way possible I could pull it off and he get to make up the school work, we'd be in Disney as much as we could afford!!

 

[merina888]

I'm a high school special education teacher in a public high school in New York State. Our district policy is that it is at the teacher's discretion whether they allow a student to make up work from an unexcused absence. So in theory, they can give your child zeros for every assignment, quiz or test your child misses and they would be within their rights. Most teachers I work with don't do that because they don't want to deal with parent fallout. It is also policy to drop a student from the rolls after 20 unexcused absences in a row and report them to CPS for educational neglect.

Over the years I've had a number of students who have missed school due to vacations that their parents scheduled during school. For many of them it is nearly impossible to catch up and they have a tough time with end of the year state and final exams. They are already working at a disadvantage and their parents do them no favors by taking them on vacation.

 

[jsal318]

Two years ago I took my kids out for five days for a Disney trip. They were 3rd grade, 8th grade, and 11th grade. I told the elementary teacher and she sent home a journal for my daughter to write in about the trip. The 8th and 11th graders asked the teachers for work about 3 weeks before. Some gave work, some didn't. One teacher let 11th grader take a test early. The Friday before (they were missing Monday through Friday) I sent notes to the school that they would be absent the next week. No explanations of why. The schools were fine - no questions asked. I live on Long Island in NY.

 

[boltfan]

We had our kids complete journals while at Disney (when they were in elementary school). I have to say that as they got up into middle school, we just wrote an excuse saying it was a family vacation and left it at that. My kids are all A students so we didn't get any questions at all from the district.

 

[DopeyDame]

I definitely wouldn't be fudging anything on the form, if I were you. I am all in favor of taking kids out of school for travel (we're leaving next week for a trip! ) but I also don't want to lie to the school. I am the parent and get to decide where my kids are and what they are doing at any given time. They are the school and get to decide their policies for what happens if kids aren't at school. So if they're going to give my kids unexcused absences and not let them make up a test, I'm OK with that. (OK, I'd be a little annoyed if they can't make up work, but wouldn't do anything about it.)

So, in your case, I'd put something very simple like "all travel is educational in that it expands a person's breadth and depth of experience in life." And leave it at that. If they buy it, great. If they don't, OK. No kid is going to miss out on Harvard because of a zero on a test in 3rd grade.

 

[gabriellewatson]

Bumping this forum because well this is an option that my family is weighing for a trip next year. We don't want to go during the school year because we don't want to pull out daughter out for an entire week, but at the same time, we would prefer to go during that time frame. It would be the 2nd or 3rd week of school. We always go in the off season when we get to, but it's been years. I'm glad that other parents find Disney and travel in general educational.

I'm an expert in the field of family studies and families in general are not taking enough vacations. We are one of those families, so for us to save up and plan for a vacation like this it is definitely more than just for fun. It is for bonding and getting to see a whole new world, so to speak. It is an educational experience in itself to be exposed to many new cultures and experiences. My kids have never had an experience like WDW before and probably will never again or at least till they are much older. With rising costs it's hard to budget for it.

Thanks for all the advice from everyone. I'm going to take this to our principal when the time comes.

 

[heehee611]

This isn't a post asking whether we should....we most definitely ARE.

But this is the first time our kids have been in public school for one of our WDW trips, and the first time we've had to fill out a form excusing their absences.

Specifically, the form says that in order for it to be excused, there must not only be educational VALUE, but the primary PURPOSE of the trip should be educational in nature.

Uhhh.....uh-oh.

My daughter(9) IS very interested in a culinary career, and we ARE hitting up the last night of the F/W Festival at Epcot, and eating at some places that are very different for us(Sanaa, etc.).

But it's gonna be really fudging it to say that the PRIMARY purpose is educational in nature.

How have you parents handled this with your local school systems?

I'm no help... I say "Suck it 2nd grade, we're going to Disney World" and we take the unexcused absences...LOL. He never misses a day of school for anything else, and is almost never sick. So I'm not really worried about it!

 

[GotLabradors]

This might be a little bit of a stretch, but here is how we rationalized it on our school's form (with a little more flowery language):

EPCOT--
Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, Test Track--Science & Technology
The Seas with Nemo--Marine Biology
World Showcase--Geography & Social Studies

Magic Kingdom--
Carousel of Progress--Science & Technology, Social Studies
Hall of Presidents--American History
Tom Sawyer Island & many other Disney stories that were born from books (the ones based on Fairy Tales)-- Literature

Animal Kingdom--Science & Social Studies


Hollywood Studios--
Lights, Motors, Action, Indiana Jones--cinematography
The Great Movie Ride, One Man's Dream--American history

There are plenty more examples of attractions with educational opportunities, you'll just have to be a bit creative with the explanation.

This is great. We have a high schooler and a middle schooler, so we're actually thinking about doing one of the YES classes.

 

[betsywdw]

We went the 3rd week in October. My DD is in 3rd grade. Her forms were approved to go but her teacher piled on the homework. She required my DD to complete all of the work from the daily schedule plus her nightly homework. That resulted in over 35 hours of work for us to make up. It was ROUGH! We will probably not take her out for a full week of school again because it was just too much to try and keep up with during the trip and after.

 

[MyFamily8]

We are allowed 10 days of unexcused absences. We plan on taking our 6 children out of school in May. It will be the last week of school so educationally wise they will be fine. We are being strict on them missing days between now and then. All of their teachers, the principal, and vice principal know of our plan and are ok with it. I am sorry you have to jump through hoops.

 

[JennyMarie821]

I posted earlier in this thread about taking my kids out for a week. I was nervous it was going to be a big hassle but it turned out to be no big deal at all. I turned in the forms to the office and the secretary said she didn't recognize my kids names as being frequently absent and it should be no problem to get it approved by the principal. The kids teachers were all thrilled when I told them and are even hesitant to send any work home with them. They all said as long as they understand the concepts of the work they will miss then that's good enough for them. It went way better than expected.

 

[sabcook]

We are leaving next week for our 4th WDW vacation with the kids and the fourth time we are taking one or both out of school to do so. The first trip we had a kindergartner and a pre-schooler. This trip they are in 5th and 2nd grades. All of our trips previously have been the week after thanksgiving but this year we are going the week before. The reason for this is, we can get their work from a classmate AFTER the trip so we don't have to ask for any special treatment from their teachers. They will also have a week to make everything up while on Thanksgiving break.

As far as excused/unexcused goes - I don't even try to pass it off as educational (even though I do think they can be, and the last trip we did "behind the seeds" at Epcot and it inspired our DS (8 at the time) to do a science fair project on hydroponics). We tell the administration what we are doing and then we do it and our kids have 5 unexcused absences for one marking period every two years. On the last trip we did 6 days out of school and we did get a threatening letter from the principal that we had exceeded the allowable unexcused days and you know what happened? Not a darned thing. I think it would be different if we did it several times a year -

Everyone needs to make the decision that is right for their own family and I completely respect other families making a different decision than we would. This time with our kids will be gone before we know it and I am so grateful that we can have such a wonderful trip with family (we alternate sets of grandparents to take with us on each trip).

Do what feels right to you and have a great trip - whenever it is