The Horticulturalist

I know what you mean but it's a bit of a sweeping statement, everyones family situation is different.

We took our son out for one week tagged onto spring break this year, to wait until June would have made it prohibitively expensive and meant that we wouldn't have seen our family at all.

He's 7 years old and was in 1st grade at the time, he's making A's. I've found that the often the last week prior to vacation is filled with outings, watching movies and all kinds of other fun stuff, It didn't affect his grades.

That said we don't want to make a habit of it so we will be going back in the summer in the future.

jumping doris

The most disruptive thing we have ever done was move our kids to the US when they were 10, 14 and 16 years old.
If they can cope with the transition to a completely different educational system and still get straight A's, make new friends, join teams and generally embrace school life here then a few days off school won't derail their futures.

AmerLisa

That's we've found worked in the past....

AmerLisa

Exactly! If anything you could have them write a mini report and bring things back to show the class. Any good teacher would see it as a great opportunity for the child and her class. A kind of roving reporter type thing.....

Englishtart

Best piece of advice I ever got...doesn't always pay to be up front

Jerseygirl

Calling the school wouldn't have helped when my daughter was in middle school because if the child was off school sick parents were required to pick up (or arranged to have it picked up) the day's homework before the close of school. You were also expected to drop off the previous day's homework at the same time.

When we lived in the UK we asked the head if she could take time off school to visit NY and Washington DC. The head said yes as it was a great opportunity and should not be missed. A few months later we asked for a few extra days tagged onto a weekend to go to NYC...she refused. A similar situation arose here in the US...the first time it was approved...the second time refused.

Sally Redux

I actually wouldn't take my children out of school unless it was a real emergency back home, in fact they would be upset if they had to miss work.

Philgr

In our part of CA it is all about funding - if your kids are out, the school doesn't get paid so they don't want any missed days. However, if they are out for over a week the school can provide an "independent study" for them to do and the school will then get paid for the time. I don't know whether this is a national, state or school district rule but it's probably worth asking if it's an option.

Englishtart

That's something else that confuses me here, when my kids were sick and I called the school to ask for missed work assignments, so they could do them at home. I was told that they don't provide make-up work until the child has been off school for 3 or more days

When I asked why, I was told "the teachers have a busy enough school day, they don't have time"

Jerseygirl

My daughter had started school here in September...a week or so before Christmas she had flu. She was flat on her back for a week...she slept most of the time and hardly ate a thing. My rule about sick days off school was similar to my mother's...you stay in bed all day...no TV...no computer...no phone. As you can guess she didn't take many sick days.

Anyway...this particular time the school called on the second sick day and asked why I hadn't collected her homework. Firstly I'd never heard of such a practise before. Secondly I told them if my daughter was off sick she was in no fit state to be doing schoolwork...when she was well enough to do homework she'd be back at school.

Englishtart

My rule is pretty similar to yours (depending on the sickness) my Son hates taking time off from school, he failed drivers ed last year because he missed 2 classes, it's pretty strict at this school. He had genuine reasons for missing the classes, but he was mortally wounded to get an F on any class!

That's a good point though about them being too sick to do work at home.

Sue

10 years ago, when my son was 6, my grandmother died and I went back for the funeral, and to help pack up her home etc. I informed the school in writing, and in person, that we were going back for a funeral and my son would miss two weeks off school. I asked the teacher to assign my son some school work to do while we were in the UK.

I got back to discover that the school messed up, and marked my son as an "unexcused absence" (it should have been an excused absence) and consequently I ended up getting a phone call form the school districts social worker demanding to know why our son was out of school and that he was deemed as truant. The whole thing turned into a right fiasco, which took a turn for the worse when I discovered that the proceeding month another child in my sons' class had been given an excused absence for a two week family trip to Disney. I ended up having a huge row with the principal who did not take kindly to my remark that "the next time a member of my family looks like they might die I'll ask them if they can hold on and die in the school holidays."

Two years later when my sister had her baby (my first nephew) I took my son out of school again for two weeks, and not one word was said to us and I managed to get an "excused absence" that time

Just to add those are the only two times I've taken him out of school. I didn't want him to miss any more time of school, as it means extra work for him to catch up again when he gets back.

nooj

good for you! i love that!

I think this out of proportion attitude by schools, coupled with the badly spaced school holidays means that the american education system turns out people who are entirely insular, never been out of their own state let alone visited another country and contributes to the negative view that the rest of the world has about young americans. Its not really their fault if they are so surprised that not everyone else in the world worships the cheeseburger, if the poor buggers never get the chance to leave the classroom.

AmerLisa

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.....

The Horticulturalist

And of course the UK system is turning out well educated geniuses who've never been further than the town centre on a Friday night