Thoughts on taking kids out of school

[tigger2on]

I am an Ontario Teacher working for a public school board. I am also a full day kindergarten teacher and IMHO I fully support parents who take their children out of school to go on vacation. Currently I have 2 students on vacation from my class 1 is in India for a month and the other is in SriLanka for 3 weeks. When they return they will be better for their trips away, they will have memories to last a life time and extra time spent with their families. This is just as important as formal schooling. I have taken my own children out of school twice during my maternity leaves for vacations. Travelling in the off season is cheaper and the parks are less crowded. I would highly reccomend taking your grade K-8 children out of school, they will catch up on anything they miss. I don't know of any child who failed a grade because they went on vacation. Have fun, life is short.

P.S. I would highly recommend Disney during the first or second week of school in September. The parks are EMPTY!!! We did every park in 1/2 a day and spent the afternoon at a waterpark. The lifeguards at the water park said we were the only people in the lazy river! It was sweet!!

Our teachers are also very supportive in Life Experiences . I will be removing my 3 youngest children (SK, Gr.1 & Gr. 3) from school for a month in Oct. 2013 to go oveseas to visit family they have never met. We are also hoping that DCL announces a WBTA from Europe to the States. If so, I will be taking them home by this method. I will be having them do travel journals (different ones for their capabilities, they will be researching the countries we are visiting and learning the flags, money, national flower as well as doing some photo journaling with their digital cameras of things they see at each stop that interest them.) My DD in grade 3 will be assigned some homework but it will be photocopied and in a binder to make it easier to take with us. Having a possible 9 sea days will give her more than enough time to do some work ... though she may not see it that way.

We have always done a week of Disney in Sept, Oct. or May and will continue to do so unless their are major problems but so far, our teachers have been willing to work with us and support our decisions.

 

[shenaniganzz]

We took our DD out for a week and a half at the beginning of this school year. She was starting JK. I have no issue with the missing school part (it's a play based curriculum anyway and they learn so much on a trip anyway!).

The only thing I regret is that it took my daughter longer to bond and make friends. She only attended the orientation day (staggered entry) and then was away. Then she was a bit behind the other kids getting used to the routine, forming early bonds. She was fine eventually, but I don't know if I would do it that early again, in JK. However, of note is that she didn't attend preschool, so was starting JK not knowing any of her classmates already. If your daughter already knows kids in her class, it will probably be less of an issue. Again, kids are resilient and they do adjust... just in retrospect I would have made the adjustment easier for her by waiting a least a month after she started.

We are going again this year in the fall... this time the end of the month. She have more time to adjust a bit, but it won't be as big a deal this year because she's BTDT and will already know friends from JK.

 

[monkey30]

our kids have been taken out of school each year they have been in it for vacation. We try to plan it around PD days and holidays.

Last year we did a Mexico trip we had one PD day that week, and in the end they only missed 2 days of school because there was a snow day as well!

Good luck, it all depends on the student and family situation.

 

[momtoamulan]

We are planning two trips in 2013. A week in february to Clearwater but of course I have to add two days at disney! and then 10 days in October for a full disney trip.
My oldest will be in SK in feb and grade 1 in October and my youngest will be in jk in October.
Should I be worried about pulling them out of school??

We took our daughter out of school in December for a week..looking into going away in Sept...she has the same teacher..I don't think she will miss much...

 

[slusher]

I'm taking my highschooler out in May for two weeks. Her school is semestered and we set her schedule to have all the hard courses in the previous semester, she's actually kind of bored at the moment with what she's doing. That was some serious advance planning on the course selection to have a WDW trip!

We've also taken our kids out in early June, the teachers hate to tell you what the date is, but there is a point when they have to start doing report cards in elementary, and any work after that doesn't affect the grade. You'll know as a parent when your kids say they watched movies in school that the work is done. We went on an Atlantic Canada trip from the beginning of June once and actually never got our kids report cards until school opened again in the fall. However that trip involved every historical site between Ontario and Newfoundland because we're geeks that way, and now that the kid is doing grade 10 history is giving the sighs about "been there done that" when the teacher talks about this stuff in class.

Disney is our first non-educational trip in 15 years, although we'll probably talk about geographical tourism and ecological impacts because we can't help ourselves.

 

[MamaLema]

I wouldn't even think twice

I miss those days. I have kids in high school now so we can't do it anymore

 

[Keancanuk]

We've taken our kids out of school every year for trips. They are in Gr 1 and Gr 3 now. And we also try to plan trips around PA days or long weekends, to have less school days missed.

We leave this week for Florida, Fri is a PA day. We always speak with the teachers to ensure that nothing pressing is happening while they are away.
Both of them are in poetry competitions, next week, so they just have to read theirs before they go away.
Gr1 child, the teacher told us another child will be in Disney the same week and to just have dd write a journal of her trip.
Gr 3 teacher encouraged us to 'enjoy family time, if you can, while you can', she was all for us leaving and also said she would send some math homework, only because ds is starting a new unit in math, but she said she's not worried as ds does well in school.

This school year though they were taken out of school last Oct for our Disney Dream cruise and now next week for Florida. Its all good though and we are super excited !