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

[okeydokey]

There is no way in the world that anyone would believe that a Disney vacation is Primarily for education. It's laughable, really.

Since you say you have been told it's no big deal, I wouldn't sweat the form. Just fill it out saying you are going to Disney and turn it in.

If the days are unexcused, then they are unexcused.

 

[3princes+1princess]

Below is what was on the form for my son to go on a 5 day band trip to NY.

We are taking this tour to New York for many reasons. First, we are looking to reward the students for all of their hard work throughout the year. Second, we feel this tour will help build camaraderie and create a special bond within our organization. Third, the educational opportunities allow us to learn first hand about other destinations’ histories and cultures. Finally, we know that there will be many memories and friendships from this trip that will last a lifetime

You could say these exact things about your family trip. We want to reward our children, we want to create a special bond with our family, they will learn about other destinations (histories and cultures in Epcot too) and these memories will last a lifetime.

If it is good enough for a band trip, it is good enough for a family trip. I don't expect an issue in Jan when we go...but I will pull this out if I need to.

 

[Byron13]

The county that we live at in England does not allow any absentee. Parents get fined. $80 a week per child per parent. They also have unauthorised absentee on their school reports. You can not take them out for any vacations.

 

[mickeyfanachey1999]

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

My son had one too many days unexcused when he was in the 5th grade. My wife and I got ticketed by the sheriff, got to go to court, paid roughly $600 in fines and got 80 hours of community service. Every Saturday that summer I got to go cut grass with all types of interesting folks! That is reason number 100 that he is now homeschooled.

 

[slzer0]

My son had one too many days unexcused when he was in the 5th grade. My wife and I got ticketed by the sheriff, got to go to court, paid roughly $600 in fines and got 80 hours of community service. Every Saturday that summer I got to go cut grass with all types of interesting folks! That is reason number 100 that he is now homeschooled.

That is unbelievable! Since when do schools take precedence over parents? Some districts really get carried away. I'm so sorry to hear you were treated like a common criminal.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

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.

I'm near you. And our school district is equally strict. If we want to travel more with our kids we'll have to do PA Cyber. It's frustrating.

 

[missbrooke06]

My son had one too many days unexcused when he was in the 5th grade. My wife and I got ticketed by the sheriff, got to go to court, paid roughly $600 in fines and got 80 hours of community service. Every Saturday that summer I got to go cut grass with all types of interesting folks! That is reason number 100 that he is now homeschooled.

Thanks for sharing. Husband and I have been having a "public v. private" fight. Good ammo for me.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

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.

I hope nobody crucifies me for admitting this, but when my son's teacher did this to him, I removed about half the work and did it myself. I knew it was a dishonest thing to do, and I aim to teach my kids to be good people, so I made sure my son didn't know I was doing his work. At the end of the vacation I quietly tucked it into the folder to be turned in.

I feel the need to add that my son is in the gifted program at school, he was capable of doing the work himself. Except he has adhd, and homework sometimes takes him twice as long to complete and at the time he was not on medication for the adhd. Anyway, a non-medicated adhd kid needs a specialized study environment with no distractions, and I didn't feel it was possible to duplicate that anywhere at Disney. And I was right, even our hotel room was noisy and distracting for him. Oh, and I should add that his adhd is the inattentive type, without hyperactivity.

 

[aprilchem]

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.

Our teachers did this as well when we pulled out our 1st and 2nd graders for a cruise last year. We'd purposely picked a week where there were only two full days of school, and they sent three WEEKS worth of in-class and home assignments for the boys to complete. I had them do about 2/3 of it, but only because they're both fairly quick learners and could do it in a reasonable time period (about 1.5 hours a day). When they came back I told the teachers that I knew what had happened and please do not assign homework for them for the following two weeks, and they complied. It was frustrating!

 

[karliebug]

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.

Why wouldn't you expect that your child would have to complete all the missed work? As a teacher, this is always what I think is so funny. Parents tell me they are going away for a week but think their child won't "miss anything". Do people really think we play all day? Even at the elementary school level, kids are actively engaged in learning all day .

 

[SamSam]

When we took our 2 kids out of school for trips, they were required to have each teacher (middle-high school) sign a paper and get homework assignments in advance. We always made sure they did the required work, but they were both excellent students, which made it easy.

The benefit of the family time was worth it. If they would have had trouble getting the work done, I may have thought differently but for our family it worked.

 

[cattywampus]

We will be at WDW the week of the 15th and 1st grader will miss a week of school. We were honest with his teacher and she had him sign a contract to do the work that he will miss, which he will do.

If a teacher ever assigned what I believed to be punitively excessive work, there would be discussions. I believe in partnering with our schools and we have been very fortunate in that regard, but at the end of the day, I am the parent and sole decision maker. I am very direct and I do not ask schools for permission. I inform them of the decision I have already made ( hopefully wisely).

Why do they think there has been such a growth in home schooling? It's BS such as penalizing a reasonably successful student for going on a family trip for a week. It always cracks me up when schools threaten unexcused absences on your record. The only record colleges look at are your transcript and it is laughable that elementary and middle school "records" count for anything. Reminds me of the joke "this is going on your permanent record. ".

99% of people want to do right by their kids and act responsibly, including making up work missed and/or making sure said child is doing well, prior to planning a school year vacation. But I do believe too many school officials think they can dictate family life. School is hugely important but so is family. Parents need to take back control from school districts that think they own these kids. My child (and my tax dollars paying them), my decision.

A week of school for a reasonably successful student, willing to make up missed work, should not be some huge deal, particularly in the lower grades. When it is, it is usually the result of inflated self importance, unchecked ego, and money grubbing... not student welfare.

 

[betsywdw]

Why wouldn't you expect that your child would have to complete all the missed work? As a teacher, this is always what I think is so funny. Parents tell me they are going away for a week but think their child won't "miss anything". Do people really think we play all day? Even at the elementary school level, kids are actively engaged in learning all day .

Never said I didn't expect that she had to make up the work. But each day she brings home the work she completes in school plus her homework for the evening and I have never seen that much work in one week. Plus as I watched the emails her teacher sent each evening for homework, there were two additional math packets that had never even been worked on during the week we missed, yet we had them in our packet. When I emailed the teacher, she said she must have put them in by accident. Well that would have taken us another 6 hours and DD would have had to do them all again in school the next week.

Not sure where you got the impression from me that you play all day?

I simply said it was rough and we would not take her out for a full week again.

 

[DopeyDame]

My son had one too many days unexcused when he was in the 5th grade. My wife and I got ticketed by the sheriff, got to go to court, paid roughly $600 in fines and got 80 hours of community service. Every Saturday that summer I got to go cut grass with all types of interesting folks! That is reason number 100 that he is now homeschooled.

Oh hell no! I'm pretty sure I'd end up in jail for contempt of court if they tried to pull that crap in our district.

 

[AZMermaid]

First grade public school (top 5% scoring in state) teacher, I don't mind one iota if kids miss a week for vacation and I don't assign work. My school has a whole child philosophy that equates to the most important thing is a well rounded and kind child.

But... That said... I had a kid a few year back miss 29 days throughout the year, 3-5 days at a time. We have an attendance policy, but honestly, there is zero follow through as long as you don't miss 10 in a row. I'd guess 25 were vacations. This happened every year K-2 and to some extent in third. He is really really struggling now and has a pricey academic coach now in 4th. So.... Taken too far.... There can be a cost for too many vacations.

 

[kimberstampin]

As a teacher in Missouri, the unexcused absences should not be a big deal unless your child is a secondary student and might miss a final or a major assignment or has had excessive absences. Teachers are usually pretty good to give what they can ahead of time and have to give you a certain amount of time once you return to get things done. Also, a small token ~ maybe a cute ornament or something would be a nice gesture upon your return. I never have minded students being gone for something like this because, more often than not, the parents who take them value education and what I do in my classroom the rest of the year. The only time it was ever an issue was the one time a parent had an attitude that conveyed to me and their child that what we did in class wasn't really important anyway because it was just "third grade" or something like that. Although, what I teach is not life altering on a daily basis and their child would not miss anything that couldn't be made up, it came across rather rude and did not set well with me. Now, if you could squeeze the teacher in your luggage then I'm sure she would be willing to point out all the educational benefits to you and your child (while she's holding on for dear life on Test Track of course)

 

[eeyoreandtink]

As a teacher in Missouri, the unexcused absences should not be a big deal unless your child is a secondary student and might miss a final or a major assignment or has had excessive absences. Teachers are usually pretty good to give what they can ahead of time and have to give you a certain amount of time once you return to get things done. Also, a small token ~ maybe a cute ornament or something would be a nice gesture upon your return. I never have minded students being gone for something like this because, more often than not, the parents who take them value education and what I do in my classroom the rest of the year. The only time it was ever an issue was the one time a parent had an attitude that conveyed to me and their child that what we did in class wasn't really important anyway because it was just "third grade" or something like that. Although, what I teach is not life altering on a daily basis and their child would not miss anything that couldn't be made up, it came across rather rude and did not set well with me. Now, if you could squeeze the teacher in your luggage then I'm sure she would be willing to point out all the educational benefits to you and your child (while she's holding on for dear life on Test Track of course)

This works unless, like us, you are in a district where any work missed for an unexcused absence cannot be made up. One week of unexcused absences puts a kid a whole letter grade in the hole. Even if you make 100 on everything else, you cannot miss a whole week's worth of work and get an A in a 9 week quarter.

 

[AZMermaid]

We have standards based report cards. So the kids are graded on progress until 6th grade. Grades are broken down by standard and kids get a 1(needs improvement) 2(good progress, not mastered yet) or 3 (standard mastered). The first trimester, most kids get all 2s (so making progress). They can't get an A until 6th grade and missing work can not be factored into the report card-only mastery of standard.

 

[cattywampus]

This works unless, like us, you are in a district where any work missed for an unexcused absence cannot be made up. One week of unexcused absences puts a kid a whole letter grade in the hole. Even if you make 100 on everything else, you cannot miss a whole week's worth of work and get an A in a 9 week quarter.

This comes across as "we aren't actually sure your child is going to miss enough to hurt them academically, so we are going to envoke a policy to artificially make sure it does". That is strictly punitive, which is completely at odds with the school's actual job, and should not be accepted by parents.

Until parents start saying no, this sort of thing will continue.

 

[Chief Powhatan]

Wow - I have nothing to add to this thread other than it makes me feel better about the hefty private school tuition check I write every month.