next »

[molli_sols]

    My daughter is starting kindergarten in the fall and we just got the calendar today.  How do you deal with mismatches between your own school's calendar and your kid's? Do you always follow yours or only travel when you and your kids are off from school together?  Since Andi_sols and I are in the same field we often go to conferences as a family and since we live apart we always spend our breaks together.  As it is, I can see already that I will be pulling her out of school for three different weeks to accommodate travel we had already planned during my breaks (1 conference, 1 vacation with extended family, and my Christmas break that starts earlier than hers).   In Kindergarten I'm not too worried about it affecting her academically, and getting sitters during her vacations when I am not off is usually not too hard, but should I worry about travel affecting her as school becomes more rigorous? 

[lizzy]

    My daughter is starting kindergarten in the fall and we just got the calendar today.  How do you deal with mismatches between your own school's calendar and your kid's? Do you always follow yours or only travel when you and your kids are off from school together?  Since Andi_sols and I are in the same field we often go to conferences as a family and since we live apart we always spend our breaks together.  As it is, I can see already that I will be pulling her out of school for three different weeks to accommodate travel we had already planned during my breaks (1 conference, 1 vacation with extended family, and my Christmas break that starts earlier than hers).   In Kindergarten I'm not too worried about it affecting her academically, and getting sitters during her vacations when I am not off is usually not too hard, but should I worry about travel affecting her as school becomes more rigorous? 

If you mean three full weeks, then probably there will be some effect. There's also legal considerations around truancy to consider. I don't know if this is the norm, but in our school district, students are allowed only ten unexcused absences before parents are ticketed. And the kind of travel you mention doesn't count in the "excused" category. For instance, when my daughter was ill I had to produce "official" doctors' excuses to have the four days she missed count as "excused." For kids with chronic health problems, those ten days can add up awfully fast.

[frogfactory]

No idea if this sort of thing would be workable for you, but on one occasion (I was eight and my sister six) the family had to visit India for a few weeks (four, I think) during term.  The school's solution was to ask us to keep a daily diary, and I got a workbook to do.  We didn't fall particularly behind, except that somehow I missed the classes on manual long division, and I've not picked it up since!

[macaroon]

Ah, the halcyon days of childcare!  They're over, molli_sols, and you're screwed.  I'm so mad about the amount of days my child has off that I could absolutely scream.  In our family, Mr. Macaroon (who has a normal job) has to eat them all out of his vacation days, since I can't because of my teaching schedule.  This means my family will never take a vacation.  My children and I - who haven't seen my grandparents in 3 years - will likely never see them again alive.  Next time I see my grandparents, they'll be in a casket.  I'm sure.  

Here's how Mr. Macaroon has at least managed to keep his own job.  We have Coconut #1 registered with 3 area home day care providers.  In my state, that means filling out health forms and a registration form (with HDCPs, they usually don't charge to register).  We attempt to book her with one of the HDCPs for each day as soon as we get the schedule.  Unfortunately, they often forget and often decide that, since their school age child is off, it's a great week to go on their own vacation.  We've had enough success with this that Mr. Macaroon has had enough  time off to have surgery and make it to the dentist, but not enough to take a vacation.

And, yes, you very well may run into citations for the educational neglect of your child for pulling her out for that many days.  Good luck.  It really sucks.

[molli_sols]

Funny you should mention long division.  I hated math up until 4th grade when I missed the week on long division.  My mother taught me while I was doing my make-up work and I discovered I was a math person after all.  It changed my career trajectory from bad poet to scientist.  My mom failed high school algebra but she was a very good coach of my own learning.  
  
I admit, it is my own fault that I never considered that her Christmas Break and mine would start 2 weeks apart when I scheduled our conference/family Christmas visit.  But she's too young to fly across the country unaccompanied to meet us after the conference even if I did get a sitter for the week.  I wonder if we can do some kind of educational project to satisfy the school.  She'll learn far more from a week in San Fransisco than a week in podunk elementary.  OMG, I'm going to be a snowflake as a parent.

What does getting a ticket mean? 

[quotiazelda]

In general, I never had a problem pulling the kids out when the kids were in the lower elementary grades. Many school districts, however, have policies about how many days kids can miss before they are held back/have to do summer school. How well such policies are enforced, especially for little kids, I don't know.

By middle school (at least in our hothouse, overachieving district) there is so much work that missing more than a couple of days does become problematic. Our district releases the schedule a year in advance, and I print it out so we can plan vacations around it.

Our district also has various PITA days off, like a day or two of "teacher planning" at the end of each marking period. Luckily for us, the kids' after-school program provides full-day care on those days and on snow days (assuming the snow is only a couple of inches - enough to close the schools but not most employers). That has been a lifesaver, but we still find ourselves burning through an annoying number of leave days for days like Good Friday, when both the school and the after-school program are closed. Good Friday? Really????

[macaroon]

What does getting a ticket mean? 

Are you in the US?  It varies by state how child welfare is handled, but "educational neglect" is a failure to send your child to school.  A case will be opened by child welfare, and you'll be investigated for it.  As in, a social worker comes to your house and threatens to put your kid in foster care with a foster family that will send your child to school.  I have no idea whether this is realistic in your state and with your school system.  I have found that the school system where I live is incredibly unsympathetic to two-career families and those with no extended family around.  As a result, I haven't taken my daughter out for vacations (obviously, Mr. Macaroon couldn't come, but I could travel alone with the kids on my breaks).

In many states, though, Kindergarten is not mandatory, so if this is the case for you, you won't end up in the system this year.

[macaroon]

Our district releases the schedule a year in advance, and I print it out so we can plan vacations around it.

Our district also has various PITA days off, like a day or two of "teacher planning" at the end of each marking period. Luckily for us, the kids' after-school program provides full-day care on those days and on snow days (assuming the snow is only a couple of inches - enough to close the schools but not most employers).

Ugh.  Can I move into your district, quotiazelda?  Our 2010-2011 school calendar wasn't released until June - which meant that I and all the other working parents had already booked summer camp.  I came up short on the last week of August.  I'm teaching, she's out...  and the only place that would take her that week is a "developmental" arts camp, providing mainly art therapy on grants for developmentally disabled grade schoolers from a very poor neighborhood.  Best of luck, Coconut #1! 

[niceday]

Wow. I had no idea about this. (My kid is one). Is there no workaround? A sane pediatrician that will write you sick days or something?

I understand the desire to keep kids in school but shouldn't someone look at the circumstances? I mean, if you are taking the kid along on a trip to a place where he/she will experience all sorts of interesting things, doesn't that count? Isn't it likely a lot more valuable educationally than a few more days at school where they get to point at places on a map rather than actually visit them?

Wow.

[concordancia]

What does getting a ticket mean? 

Some districts impose a fine for excessive truancy. (And, on preview, some evidently involve Protective Services). All of this will depend on your district and your child's individual teachers. In some cases, as long as your child is performing well, there won't be any issues. In other cases, bureaucracy will take over and mixing X number of days will set forth the Enforcers.



I am having a problem with not knowing these things. Have your colleagues not been commenting on them? Have you not noticed the differing patterns of children in the neighborhood? Did you have no siblings so that some were in school while others were in college? Sorry, I am sure the tone comes out miserably here, but I am trying to say, oh, I thought this disparity was common knowledge.

Personally, I was shocked to move to TT city where my large public university and larger public R1 actually coordinate Spring Break not only between themselves (lots of academic couples split between the two. Well, lots of husbands work at R1 and their wives work at my school, but that is a different issue), but also with the local school district. But they don't coordinate anything else - not even start and end dates. ie, the R1 either has a slightly longer semester or a longer reading period before finals - just because I have turned in grades does not mean that their library is a nice peaceful place to work.

As for the work around - who gets to decide which trips are educational and which aren't? I don't think I would want to be involved with that system!

[bibliologos]

Welcome to the wonderful world of post-all-day-daycare.  Little Bib is going into grade 5 this fall, so we've been doing this dance for a few years now.

Late August:  Mr Bib and I look at the school calendar, find all the off-days (e.g., teacher professional development, parent-teacher conferences, breaks) during the school year.  Mr Bib has some flexibility because as a middle-manager he works some days that he should have off.  I have some flexibility because, well, I'm a tenured professor (but I wasn't tenured when we started this dance).  We put all the off-days for Little Bib into both our calendars, and we figure out who can cover each one.  Christmas break is hard, although I usually take a few days at home to grade and prep.

During school year:  One of us forgets about one of the off-days and schedules a meeting or something.  We frantically phone around for play-dates.  We now have a small network of Little Bib's friends whose parents are also working outside the home with whom we trade supervising all-day playdates.

January:  There are two week-long breaks in the Feb-Apr period, neither of which coincide with any time we can or want to take off (I teach during both of them).  We put Little Bib into a themed day camp at the Uni.  She likes Art Camp, but also likes some of the sports camps.  We need to plan this in January because if we leave it too late the camps are full.

March:  The summer day camps info comes out from the various places at the Uni that have camps.  We figure out which weeks of the summer we want to take our holidays.  We haggle with Little Bib over which camps she wants to go to (luckily there are more camps than weeks to do them in).  Then there's usually a week or two where I do course prep or writing from home.

It all takes an enormous amount of time.  And lots of energy.  And lots of pre-planning.  Start planning now for grade 1.

[quotiazelda]

One thing to remember is that in some (many? I'm not sure) states school funding formulas are based on average daily attendance. When you couple that with the problems that excessive absences can cause for students who are already struggling or have heavy workloads, schools have a strong interest in ensuring students are in school every day, and they're often not terribly willing to come up with workarounds for individual students.

Macaroon,
I do love having the schedule so far in advance, but the random days off (and half days) do piss me off. Why my kids need Easter Monday off from school, I will never know. The school system is not terribly friendly to families with two working parents, which is surprising given the area where we live, but thankfully the after-school program picks up much of the slack (for a very steep price!).

[concordancia]

Why my kids need Easter Monday off from school, I will never know.

Would you like to be in charge of 30 kids pumped up on chocolate bunnies?!

[niceday]

What does getting a ticket mean? 

districts impose a fine for excessive truancy. (And, on preview, some evidently involve Protective Services). All of this will depend on your district and your child's individual teachers. In some cases, as long as your child is performing well, there won't be any issues. In other cases, bureaucracy will take over and mixing X number of days will set forth the Enforcers.



I am having a problem with not knowing these things. Have your colleagues not been commenting on them? Have you not noticed the differing patterns of children in the neighborhood? Did you have no siblings so that some were in school while others were in college? Sorry, I am sure the tone comes out miserably here, but I am trying to say, oh, I thought this disparity was common knowledge.

Personally, I was shocked to move to TT city where my large public university and larger public R1 actually coordinate Spring Break not only between themselves (lots of academic couples split between the two. Well, lots of husbands work at R1 and their wives work at my school, but that is a different issue), but also with the local school district. But they don't coordinate anything else - not even start and end dates. ie, the R1 either has a slightly longer semester or a longer reading period before finals - just because I have turned in grades does not mean that their library is a nice peaceful place to work.

As for the work around - who gets to decide which trips are educational and which aren't? I don't think I would want to be involved with that system!

I didn't grow up in this country so I'm just finding out about stuff like this.  None of my colleagues have school age kids. There are a few who have kids that are about to start school and others with grown kids. (Think a department with lot of almost retiring folks and lots of fresh hires that have come in recently).

My part of the neighborhood is populated mostly by young singles and retirees. The kids in my school district almost all live in a separate enclave (kind of like the other side of tracks) and in an area quite different than my part of the neighborhood.

Well, point taken about deciding about trips but shouldn't a teacher be able to make such a judgement call? I mean if a kid is thriving academically and takes off a week on a multi-city trip to all sorts of interesting places, the response is to take report the kid and take actions that engage protective services? Aren't there all sorts of actually abused kids that fall through the cracks because of staff shortages?

[ms_turtle]

I doubt that I'll ever get used it. We get the next academic calendar starting in February which gives everyone loads of time to plan and get ticked off by the half-days, too long breaks, and school starting on August 6. Yes, a frickin' Friday! I get done teaching for my summer session on July 30. grrrr....