Why would you take your kids on a vacation during school? There are plenty of breaks during the year including all of summer.
Because those breaks don't line up with other cousins' breaks.
Because those breaks don't line up with great-grandma's 95th birthday, and she lives a full day's journey away.
Because those breaks don't line up with your work schedule, or your partner's work schedule.
Because my child is excelling academically, and I absolutely don't think that she'll get as much value out of being in school on Thursday & Friday as she will visiting her relatives in a foreign country for a long weekend.
As my child's parent, it is my duty to be aware of their educational performance, needs, and shortcomings. Based on all that info, I have no problem deciding to take them out of school for two days to go trout fishing with grandpa, or to view the eclipse with grandma.
It wasn't super common, but it was common enough that there was a standard procedure around it (basically you'd get the classwork/homework that you'd be missing and be expected to present it upon return).
I think a bigger part now is that schools are somewhat more overloaded, so missing class puts you "out of sync" and there's nothing to help you catch back up. When I was young the parents were expected to do that: I don't know how common it is now.
And it isn't even that folks are wrong; but evidence is fairly clear that nobody has a solution for education that works. We do know of a bunch of small things that can work in some situations, but at large, we are still trying.
I'm open to the idea that I'm wrong on this, of course. Just peruse the top posts and you will see all sorts of assertions about how this isn't actually a problem. There are more than a few pointing out that schooling is irrelevant.
Again, these aren't necessarily wrong. But they are ignoring a whole lot more than they are talking to.
Pretty much no one raised an eyebrow about this sort of thing, certainly not at the 10 day total mark.
Why do you think the rules have remained the same?
Similarly, I don't think I ever had an "excused" absence, I didn't have to provide evidence or doctor's notes to the school when I was sick. That simply wasn't a thing that was tracked at all.
1. Assimilate immigrant children into American culture so that they would think of themselves as "American" first and whatever ethnicity they came from second. (Hence, the Pledge of Allegiance, national anthem, American football games, focus on history & social studies in class, etc.)
2. Provide childcare during working hours so parents could go to work. (Hence, compulsory education, hours that aligned with a factory schedule, high student-teacher ratios, etc.)
3. Teach children the skills they would need to be successful in the factory system. (Hence, attendance, arriving punctually, moving between rooms at the bell, following orders, not complaining, etc.)
What's happened over the last 40 years is that the factory system in America fell apart, and so the skills needed for it no longer seem all that relevant compared to actually getting a good education, which school is not all that effective at. Meanwhile there are new waves of immigration with parents that were often highly educated (moreso than native-born Americans, oftentimes) abroad; they don't buy the "this is what a good education looks like" explanation, because they have had an actual good education abroad. And the Internet in general makes people much more suspicious of institutions, because you can see the ways that different power centers try to enforce control of the discourse, and there is no unified discourse to get behind anyway. The public school system in America is deeply embedded in the industrial institutions that were developed from 1900-1980, and as those institutions collapse, the public school system collapses with them.
But that's overall, in aggregate. All those drops fill up a river. But a single drop won't be missed.
Truth is, some families just don't take education seriously.
(My parents’ background was dirt poor, rural, and white, to set the scene—but skipping by choice was something not to be taken lightly, you go to school, that’s how it is)
When everyone else is doing the same thing. If you do it at a different time you could benefit from reduced costs and reduced traffic. You can also provide your child with a more rewarding and engaging experience than the drudgery and frustrating inefficiency of the typical school pedagogy.
My first thought reading the headline was that more people are realizing the irrelevance of school and work, and prioritizing other things.
We need to stop thinking of "education" as a monolithic school concept that produces worker bees through rote memorization and repetition.
I am in the group that took 1-2 yearly week long vacations in elementary school. Nothing was lost, since I just did the week of required work in half a day after returning from vacation.
The science teacher at the school probably wishes they could do it.
I and a good many others in my classes were WAY ahead of the curriculum already, and basically sitting bored in class all day. I remember my parents literally asked my teachers to give me more advanced homework because I would constantly say I learned basically nothing or that days would go by wasted reviewing things I had already mastered.
So they were confident that I wasn't really missing much from being out even for a week or two at a time. I don't know if this is standard practice nowadays, but I know my parents also requested from the teacher that weeks worth of coursework so I could do them even while on vacation. I could usually finish a weeks worth of coursework within like an hour or two of sitting down, and I didn't even consider myself a particularly gifted student compared to some.
Funerals are bereavement leave from school so you don’t need to worry.
I feel like 90% of midwesterners would be agreeing with me…
Other people's family and friends will have multiple destination weddings, etc.
Still suspect it's not a major component, kids can only have so many grandparents after all.
Some of the “meh, missing two weeks a year for vacations isn’t a big deal” attitudes in this thread are very surprising to me, also as a midwesterner.
Is the expectation that a family takes a 2 week luxury vacation every year?
Historically, retail gasoline prices tend to gradually rise in the spring and peak in late summer when people drive more frequently. Gasoline prices are generally lower in winter months.
>https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...
Only at a certain level of upper-middle-class affluence, but for them probably. But even one-week cruises are much cheaper off-season.
What about schools not sticking their nose too far out into the parts of life that they should not control? Like where and when we take our kids on vacations.
If my kids get good grades and catch up on any missed homework the school should not get spun up about them missing some days.
Turning schools into a mild version of prisons is not good for anyone -- kids, parents or the society. My 2c.
it's not that hard, if you commit to going to school, then just try to go and do vacations during school holidays
otherwise, just home school
Why is this? If true, why this problem is not appearing in private schools that pretty universally do not object to parents taking their kids away for vacations or family events as long as kids master the material.
The teacher needs to have a program of study with specific topics covered, recommended exercises for practice and required homework to check understanding for each. If a student masters the material why does anyone care if he skipped a week? And if the student does not know the material he should get a bad grade, whether he was in every class or not.
That is how the school worked where I grew up (Eastern Europe) and it seems vastly superior to the mess we have in the US today, where many public schools teach to the lowest common denominator, making capable kids bored at best and and a nuisance to the teacher at worst.
If course taking a kid out of school for once in a life time events should be okay, even applauded. And children who are excelling should be allowed to take that trip to Europe during school. They will learn more there than in a class room.
BUT, those excuses hinge in good academics and support at home.
I heard someone say once that at the end of the day, everyone is home schooled. If students are not raised in an environment that values education, it really doesn't matter if they are going to school everyday. In my opinion as a dad of two young kids, attendance is a symptom not a cause.
But penalizing attendance issues is a lot easier that fixing the core issues which I think are mostly economic and mental health related.
I and many of my peers grew up with one stay at home parent who volunteered at my school occasionally and engaged with my teachers. Now my wife and I both have to work to afford the lifestyle I had growing up. My kids are going to have to be in after school programs which are basically just babysitting even if I am in a position to afford good mentoring.
Cell phones and social media are also causing issues with older and younger students. Peer pressure is at an all time high and academic pressure is not far behind.
We are putting so much stress on these kids, when they are just kids. They need to explore their world, get their hands dirty and be curious. Not take yet another standardized test. American society is not kind to children.
Back to it being a haves and haves not issues. As someone with a sizable household income. I absolutely afford to supplement my children's education with museum memberships and trips to see events like the eclipse and frankly also mental health support. I am lucky to have a job that I can take time off anytime I want. But this is the bubble I am in of tech workers. The vast majority of Americans cannot do that. This divide is just going to continue to widen the gap.
It will set some back, it won’t set others back at all. Telling a kid who can keep up or who is ahead of the class that they can’t take a vacation because another kid couldn’t keep up if they took a vacation is bizarre. It’s like saying that someone who’s ahead of where the class is needs to go to summer school because a kid in the class who’s behind needs to take summer school.
Why should we use the lowest performers as the baseline, and tell higher performers that they aren’t allowed to do things they’re fully capable of doing?