Taking your Kids out of School????

[DISNEYDADINOREGON]

I could use some opinions... We went for the first time this Halloween week and my son missed over a week of school. Well we are going again before spring break week and will not try and deal with the crowds during that week. Probably late Feb. early March is when we are going back. I live apart from my wife and son about 100 miles from them due to my job, and wifes job. We have doing this for a year and we are really suffering. That is why vacations are extremely important. I really starting to feel like my son who is first grade will suffer in school though. He is at the top of his class, but this last time it took him about 2 weeks of missing recess to get what he missed. We will go regardless, but I know going to WDW there are lots of kids ALL the time. So my thoughts are there are ten of thosands of kids missing school every week. How does evryone else cope with this. I think as they get older it would be harder to miss school and the teachers probably do not appreciate this at all. Sorry so long...

 

[anti4]

This year I'm taking my boys 16, and 8 on the off season because that's the only way I can afford it and it's more sensible with less waiting. We went last year and their marks haven't suffered. I just ask the teachers in advance for extra credit and homework for anything they've missed. My 16 year old is in academics and it didn't hurt him at all. I think they get more of an education at DW. The only thing I've noticed is the teachers are a bit envious.

 

[Planogirl]

It's strictly forbidden by our district so we don't do this. But if it's OK with your district and your teacher is in favor, I say go for it.

 

[Jordan's MOM]

I too say go for it but with maybe a little more advanced planning. We are going in Jan. and DS (3rd grade) will too miss a week. I would check with the school to see what the amount of missed days allowed is and think about if he has missed any other days or if he is a child that tends to get sick a lot in winter. We took DS out for a week in fall of kindergarten and eveything was fine. He however later missed like 3 weeks of school with illness and a surgery. All was fine but every school has a different amount of days one can miss and still pass that grade. I was getting real anxious. I would also work with the teacher to get more of the work done at home. No first grader should have to miss recess. They need that break in the day. Another sugestion might be to cut the trip one or two days short and have a full weekend to catch up on school work when you get back. Our trip worked out that we return on the Saturday before MLK day and DS will have two days at home to catch up.Hope that teacher will work with you to make things as easy as possible!

Jordan's mom

 

[addicted_to_WDW]

This is one of those situations in which I thumb my nose at the school and take my kid on vacation. He's a kid once, and believe me, missing a week of 2nd grade will have no lasting effects. If the school system doesn't like it, tough. He's my kid, and it's my decision.

Anyhoo...I ask for his assignments up front and we work on them a little every day. When he gets back, he is right where he should be. He's an excellent student. If he were struggling, I'd think twice about taking him out.

Do what's right for you. Your son won't fail because his parents love him enough to spend family time together when it's possible.

We'll be there the same time as Jordan's Mom. Maybe we'll see her there!

 

[welovemickey]

We have taken our kids out of school every year for the past 5 or 6 years in October/November. We've had two different experiences with teachers: (1) they are supportive and put packets of work together and ask the boys to keep a journal or (2) they make it very difficult for us to take them out and they suffer when they get back.

Either way, we've always gone. We feel strongly that family time is very important and my DH cannot get away during the summer, so we take our vacations in the fall. Every time I start to feel a bit guilty, I try and think that they are MY children and they are only young once. We pay the salaries of the teachers through our taxes, so they need to work with us (only once have I had to resort to using that line with them).

I say, go, have a great time and don't worry about the work. I would also make it clear to the teacher that your son should not miss recess and can make up the work at night if he's fallen behind.

 

[MinnieGi]

As a former first grade teacher I always had several students a year going to Disney during the off-season. My parents always informed me well in advance and that way I could make a packet of work that the student would miss, that way no missed recess etc. If your son is doing well in school it should not be a problem at all. I always asked my students to write a trip report when they got back to share with me and the class. Being that you are apart for the year - I can see why two trips in a year makes sense.

 

[tinaluis]

We took our DD out of Kindergarten for a week this past November. As it turned out, the week had two scheduled days off, Veteran's Day and Teacher Workshop Day, so she only missed 4 days of school but I didn't know that when I planned the trip. Her teacher was very supportive and I'm greatful for that, but I will continue to take her out for vacations (probably back to WDW) as long as she's doing well in school. Summer, Christmastime and Spring break are TOO crowded for me - I've been spoiled by taking all but one of my trips in the off-season. I'd say that if your son is doing well in school, there's no reason not to go. Just my 2 cents.

 

[catwho]

I think when you explain it to your son's teacher like you did to us (that the seperation of your family makes vacations an important part for the mental and emotional health of everyone) that s/he may be more willing to help keep him up with the class.

We used to take our kids out of school every year to go off=season (no choice if we want a family vacation as my dh can't take vacation time during the summer or spring when the kids were out of school.) I never had any problems with any teacher. I always gave them advanced warning. I didn't ask permission, I told them that I was taking vacation and that I wanted to know how *we* could keep the kids on track during their vacations. The most that any teacher asked of us was to have the kids send postcards to the class and to keep a journal. All other work was excused. (seriously, I kid you not)

I think what helped was that we explained the educational benefits of taking the kids to WDW. What they would gain by going to AK and Epcot (mostly) and MK and MGM (to some extent) One of the teachers didn't even realize that WDW was more than an amusement park. She just thought it was all rides and games. When we brought back pictures and shared with the class all that our oldest dd got to experience, she was very impressed.

We homeschool now, so I don't have any problems with the kids' teacher. Their "principal" OTOH tends to give me a headache <veg>


56 more days!

 

[aprincessmom]

Just took DD out for 3 days this past week. She is in Kindergarten. Worked with the teacher ahead of time and developed some things to do that would fit with this month's curriculum. We did the following:

1. Journal pages (they normally do 2 a week)
2. Dinosaur information -- we took lots of pictures and put together a little book for show and tell this week
3. Big vs. Little -- the curriculum theme this month so we did a lot of pictures where she was either the big or the little component of the picture
4. Learned how to say "please" and "thank you" in at least 4 different languages
5. Phonics workbook since she'd be missing 2 lessons in it
   [/list=1]
   
   It was nice being able to work with the teacher ahead of time and the types of activities were educational and fun. It was important to me to make sure DD knows that just because she isn't physically in school she still had to do some learning each day.

 

[DISNEYDADINOREGON]

Thanks for all the great tips! I think his teacher will not have a problem and very nice when I see her. She does know our situation. Hpoefuilly I will get the Hell outa dodge in 2002. I really like it here on the Oregon Coast but can NOT take another day of living apart. Thank YOU!

 

[sha_lyn]

We homeschool now, so I don't have any problems with the kids' teacher. Their "principal" OTOH tends to give me a headache

LOL.... and those parent teacher meetings are a great excuse to talk to yourself. We are taking one of our winter break weeks the week of Jan 7th so we can go to US/IOA and I made sure school would be over by our WDW trip in May.

 

[Jordan's MOM]

Wanted to share my teacher story that happened yesterday. I had talked with DS's 3rd grade teacher several months about our January trip and she was going to talk with his other two teacher about getting his work. I happened to see his reading teacher at school yesterday and mentioned the trip to her.She looked so mean and said there was no way DS could miss school for a week. Then she broke into a great big smile and said unless we take her along. She laughed and said DS was always on top of things and make up work would be no problem. She's getting a surprise from disney as is his regular teacher who's attitude was just as good.

Jordan's mom

 

[Feralpeg]

As kids get older, it is harder to take them out of school. My daughter is 13 and it is very hard for her to make up work now. When she was little, it wasn't as big a problem. I simply informed her teacher months in advance that she would be gone for a week. The teachers were very good about providing homework that she could do while we were gone. One teacher just asked her to keep a journal about the things she saw!!

We have a trip planned for next December. By then, my daughter will be in high school. I'm not sure how easy it will be for her to be gone a week. I will let her teachers know well in advance and hope for the best!

 

[blueswoman]

My boys are in 4th grade and kindergarten. We are going the first week of Feb but the kindergartner will only miss 2 days of school due to conference week and the older one will miss two full days and two half days. I think it's a great idea to ask for work ahead of time so that they can work on it and not leave it all until they get back. My problem is that my 4th grader has many different teachers, not just one (ie different math, reading, and language arts teachers) so I have to figure out if I need to just talk to his homeroom teacher or write a note/call each and every teacher.

The 9 year old is a great student but we would not have scheduled this trip if it wasn't a shortened week. I know that if he misses one day of school due to illness he can fall behind so I usually go into school and pick up any papers that he missed that day. So hopefully missing the 2 full/2 half won't be a problem. http://64.225.125.24/forums/images/smilies/wavey.gif

 

[pamk]

We just got back last week and had to take our 3rd grader out for 5 - 1/2 days. I wouldn't do it again. Don't get me wrong we had a great time but I really felt bad for my daughter this past week.

First of all I asked for any work that we could do ahead of time and she did it over Thanksgiving weekend.

Then we took work with us that she did kicking and screaming in the morning when all she wanted to do was go and have fun.

Lastly when we got back she had 5 tests to make up and a spelling quiz. We were up very late all week as a result. Luckily she is a good student and was able to balance the new work that she received and the work that she had to make up but it was not easy.

She still has one Science test that she couldn't take on Friday because she was overwhelmed that she will take on Monday then she will be caught up. It is a hard decision to make because going off season is the only way we could do it. But I think that it will be a very long time before we do again.

 

[WDWfanatic288]

Ive been getting taken out every year since 6th grade(im a sophmore now)

just make sure to get whatever you can b4 you go...Im alwasy doen that...I do it on thw way to the airport and then on the plane and thats enough time to do almost all of it...and then I study a bit on the way home.


yeah we went to DL and I missed 2 days of school and I had 3 tests and a quiz to make up...3 of those were all on friday...i would have had a break down if I had to do all of it in one day so I was happy to take them in different days but thast the story of every friday so it would have been normal


but one year(8th grade) my english teacher yelled at me..no joke..shes went on about how she questions my morals bc I get taken out right at the end of the 1st 6 weeks...wlel she was a horrible teacher and I never liked her anyway...whatever to her.

 

[catwho]

pamk, it sounds like your child's teacher really didn't work with you! Asking a child to do all their work while on vacation is really not fair to the child nor the parents. I would have asked for what was most important for the child to do or ask for the work way in advance so the child can BE ON VACATION! Sorry, sore subject with me. It also isn't fair to ask the child to take all the tests on one day unless that is what the class did. How stressful for your child and for you!

Some teachers!


42 more days!!!

 

[SueM in MN]

I have DDs age 16 and 19. When they were in elementary school, we did take them out of school for WDW without much problem. Some years, the teacher sent a packet of homework to do. Sometimes they just said keep a journal. One of the ways we dealt with things was dividing up the info into stuff to do on the plane on the way down and a little bit that we actually took to the park with us each day (doing math worksheets in the little waterside cafe in Mexico was a lot better than doing it in the room before going to the park).
Once they get into middle school, it was too hard for us. With different teachers for each subject, it's hard to get so many co-operative teachers. The other thing that was a problem was the books that she had to do readings in. We could have filled 2 very heavy suitcases with those. What we ended up doing was copying the pages and bringing those along rather than the whole books. A little expensive, but a lot lighter. By 8th grade, older DD said it was just too hard to be out of school that long, so we have been going during break times instead. For 2000, she had to miss one day of college classes. She told the professors ahead of time. They were most surprized (most kids just don't show up). It probably helped that she is studying art, since she could do a lot of observation adn drawing in her sketch book while at WDW.

 

[cheeringmom]

and when she misses one day its like missing two. That is why we went over Thanksgiving week, We only had to take her out od school for 2 days. But if we could get away with not having to fight the crowds and not having a months work of homework waiting for us, we would take a week off w/o hesitation.