I'm a high school teacher, and I understand the hesitation about sending out daily e-mails to make sure that your child keeps on top of assignments. To you it's a quick message.
To me it is much more than that. I don't know how your child's classes are, but I do not rely on the textbook to do my teaching. It is difficult, if not impossible for me to convey what we covered in a day by typing a five minute e-mail. That means I would have to type up the class notes for the day and attach images and primary source documents. To do less would cheapen what I am trying to teach and put your child behind when he returns. This could take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. I'm not happy about having to do that because you want to take your family to Disney World during school.
Then, what happens when your child has questions? More e-mail for me. Then your child is understandably behind when he returns, which means I will have to spend time with him after school. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to do it, but realize that my work day is now increased because I still have papers to grade and lessons to prepare. All because you wanted to go on vacation.
I hope your family has a wonderful time on vacation, but please cut you kids teachers some slack.
Melissa
I'm also a high school teacher, and I assure you that this poster is telling you the truth. Putting together individual work for a student is VERY time consuming. Expectations have risen sharply in the years I've been teaching, and if I were JUST teaching Chapter 5 of the textbook this week . . . well, I wouldn't be here much longer.
What this poster didn't throw in is the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of the students for whom we pull together all this work DO NOT COMPLETE IT. The vast majority do NONE OF THE WORK. Yes, even those whose parents contact me, ask for the work, and promise that it'll all be done. Those who do tend to complete only the "easy stuff" -- for example, quicky-worksheets, yet they leave the writing assignments unfinished. Or they come back saying, "I didn't have time on vacation. Can I have an extension?" So the upshot for the teacher is that we put in LOTS of extra time, and the child falls behind anyway. I haven't seen this once or twice, I've seen it over and over since the early 1990s.
I'm sure that people will post saying, "Not my child", but 17 years experience tells me that MOST children don't do the work while they're absent!
Because of our Jobs- this is the time of year we can travel. We both are professional and educated adults. It bothers me when teachers feel like parents don't give a damn about our kids education. I think that I am very responsible and want to make sure that the kids do not fall behind. However they will miss 5 1/2 days of school.
I understand that it's difficult for some people to get away because of their jobs -- being a teacher, I have the same problem -- but 5 1/2 days of school is a huge chunk out of my class. My class is only 90 days long, and it's likely that your child will miss another day or two here and there. My own daughter missed a day for a major orthodontist appointment last week, then she was throwing-up-sick at the end of the week -- kids miss
enough school for legitimate reasons, and you're talking about
adding onto that more than a whole week.
5 1/2 days in my class is a whole play . . . or it's our entire time in the library gathering material for the research paper (plus some time in the computer lab learning to use MLA format) . . or it's an entire poetry unit. It's not an insignificant amount of time.
I am sorry- but I spent over an hour today listening to one my employees complain about another employee- I wish I put in an 8 hour day and a 40 work week.
I wish I could put in an 8 hour day and a 40 hour week too.
If your teacher can't tell you a general idea of the what he is teaching while your child is out it sounds like the teacher has no plan. Start moving up the food chain - the vice principle, the principle, the superintendant. You will get what you need.
If you intend for your child to stay in this teacher's class for the rest of the year, I'd suggest that you NOT essentially say she doesn't know what she's doing -- not if this is the only factor upon which you're basing that opinion.
Speaking only for myself, we're required to turn in a year-long calendar stating what we're doing each and every day of the semester -- and we're expected to stick to that calendar. But telling you the general topic we'll be covering on October 10th isn't the same thing as having the worksheets, the reference materials, and everything else ready to hand over in a folder. Many things that we do
don't translate nicely into handouts.
And the teacher's first responsibility has to be to preparing for whole-class instruction, not spending hours putting together individualized assignments for students whose families choose to pull them out.
For me the bottom line is....Family Comes First!!!! Missing one week of school is NOT going to effect my child for the rest of his life.
Probably not, but it might be the week they teach the child how to use
affect and effect properly.
Taking a child on vacation isn't putting family first. Putting family first is a combination of thousands of little things you do each and every day. A vacation is a fun time for the family, but it isn't a make-or-break week.
) for each teacher and have my youngest ds (who's in first grade) work on a journal while we're gone and present that during show-and-tell. 
