Writing letter to school concerning childs absence.

Yes, you need to do it ASAP to get prior approval. We leave on the 11th and I sent ours in a couple of weeks ago. As far as what to put into the letter, I kept it short & sweet. I have never had a problem with not getting it approved, and neither has my sister in another school system.

I hope that you have a great vacation!!!:wave:

When I wrote the letters to my kid's schools, here is what I said:

My child, _________________, will be not be attendance from 9/10/07 through 9/14/07. We will be on vacation. If you have any questions, please contact me.

I did it the short & simple way.
So far, no one from the school system has even contacted us about it.

Hope this helps!

ThinkTink721 said:

When I wrote the letters to my kid's schools, here is what I said:

My child, _________________, will be not be attendance from 9/10/07 through 9/14/07. We will be on vacation. If you have any questions, please contact me.

I did it the short & simple way.
So far, no one from the school system has even contacted us about it.

Hope this helps!

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This looks like the one that I sent in too. It works just fine.

wdwmomof3 said:

Yes, you need to do it ASAP to get prior approval. We leave on the 11th and I sent ours in a couple of weeks ago. As far as what to put into the letter, I kept it short & sweet. I have never had a problem with not getting it approved, and neither has my sister in another school system.

I hope that you have a great vacation!!!:wave:

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Our school system just started with the forms that you fill out, this year. I'm glad they are doing that now. I have already turned ours in and been approved for our Oct. trip.

ThinkTink721 said:

When I wrote the letters to my kid's schools, here is what I said:

My child, _________________, will be not be attendance from 9/10/07 through 9/14/07. We will be on vacation. If you have any questions, please contact me.

I did it the short & simple way.
So far, no one from the school system has even contacted us about it.

Hope this helps!

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I'm planning on sending notes pretty much just like this except the vacation part. I'm going to say we are going out of town to attend to family business. It's none of their business what the family business is. Right?

Anywhoo, have a great trip!!!

:wave:

Think so?

Considering attendance for school age children is mandatory under the law for most grades you'd been suprised how much of "their business" it is when a judge slaps you with a fine or some jail time.

Enforcement varies from school distict but generally the trigger is the eleventh missed day when things get very serious.

Home schooled students fall under a different set of rules. Can you declare your child home schooled only for vacation weeks? Not likely.

Bottom line is to honest with school officials and work with them. Attendance is codified in law and local school personal are often not the ones that set the policy but are charged as being the enforcers and held accountable.

I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK it is illegal without school permission and, in our area at least, they are very hot on pursuing unapproved absences.

My 11 year old has just started at senior school today and their policy is that they will not approve term time vacations under ANY circumstances.

Our 7 year old is allowed up to 10 school days, which must be pre-approved and for good reason.

I find it interesting that you need their "permission" to take your child out of school for a vacation. I understand that it's a bit of an interruption in schedules to be gone for any extended period of time, but needing the school district's permission seems a bit odd. This will be the third year in a row that we've taken the kids out of school for a week in the fall to go to Disney. I've just mentioned it to the teachers on orientation day (which is tomorrow) and then sent a note (to be sent to the office as official notification of the upcoming absence) about a month before to let them know when my children will not be in school. I've never mentioned in the note where we'll be going, but I've told the teachers (they, of course, are excited for us and tell us to have a great time). I just put in the note that my child will not be in school on the listed days because we will be out of town. That's it. Good luck with your note and have a FANTASTIC vacation!!! :sohappy: :wave:

We just got into this conversation last night. My kids will be going to a private school that I pay a lot of money to send them to. My 3 year old is already there. My issue comes in someone telling we what I can and can't do. Problem is I am a rules person so I'm torn with the laws. I'm wondering how the law effects private school or are they different? I went to public and remember at least one time going away during school time and it was perfectly fine. Since my kids are still so young almost 4 yrs and 5 months I really don't see it being a big problem for a little while. It all comes down to what the schools policy is. ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! :brick:

Write the letter, take folks recommendation to keep it short and sweet -- they will be out for the week on a planned family vacation. You did not mention their ages or involvement in extra-curricular activities which should be evaluated. But my opinion is kids will recover from missing one week or so of school. Spending time with the parents and family is very good developmental time spent. Of course, you will need to make sure they do their work before and after getting back and work a bit extra hard to not get behind.

There is a wonderful excuse letter on at www.themouseforless.com Look under the downloads section on the left and click on "for the kids" and they have a real good excuse letter with examples of what your child will be learning taking a trip to disney world.

Check it out!!

last year i took my son out for 7 school days. all i did was let the teacher know as soon as i knew we were going. she is a disney fanatic also, so there was no problems. my son did not miss any other days of school.

this year during orientation, this past friday, i let the teacher know that we are planning an april trip. as long as we are not missing the major tests, she is okay with it also. those test are in may, so we are in the clear with that.

now to just make sure he does not miss any other school days.

pinkrose said:

Our school system just started with the forms that you fill out, this year. I'm glad they are doing that now. I have already turned ours in and been approved for our Oct. trip.

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That is nice that your school already has the forms. I hope that you have a great vacation!!! :wave:

My children are entering 2nd grade, kindergarten, and preschool. They oldest will miss 4 full days, the kindergartener 4 1/2 days (less than 12 hours of class time as I figure it)...and my preschooler will miss a whole 9 hours of school.

Of course I feel badly because I thought the ALL started classes tomorrow and that they would all have at least 4 days to settle into school before we left, but apparently the little ones don't start school until September 10th....so they miss the first 4 days of school.

I just sent an email to the kindergarten teacher--my son had her 2 years ago so I already had her email in my address book. I will see her at orientation on Thursday and I asked in my email if she could advise us of any class work or assignments that we could work on while away... I will do the same with my 2nd grader's teacher when I have a chance to communicate with her.

Since I pay for the preschool program, I can't see them having an issue with him missing the first week! I think he'll be fine.

Fortunately my daughter's best friend is in her kindergarten class...so it's not like she won't know anyone when she gets to class.

I gotta finish my mountain of school paperwork today so I can send it in...and of course I can't remember where I stashed their health forms...grr... I know I put them in a "safe place" but do you think I can remember where??? I really wish the school system would develop online forms... a lot of the information they ask for is redundant...and I bet it would make for more effective record keeping if it were automated!!!

We leave Friday afternoon for Disney.

I feel badly taking them out of school...but if we go during April vacatin week, it costs more than $1200 per airline ticket...for connecting flights... if we fly now, it costs that for our entire family to fly with a direct flight....plus free dining, etc... sorry but I can't afford to pay 6,000 just for transportation...

I'd rather we timed it for them to miss 4 days in October instead... but we are traveling with 3 other parties and this is when we could all arrange to go.

Catch 22 said:

I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK it is illegal without school permission and, in our area at least, they are very hot on pursuing unapproved absences.

My 11 year old has just started at senior school today and their policy is that they will not approve term time vacations under ANY circumstances.

Our 7 year old is allowed up to 10 school days, which must be pre-approved and for good reason.

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Yikes!!

Anyways, I'll be going out and missing school for the first week of Dec. It's worth having to do non-stop homework the day before:lol: , because I enjoy having light crowds in the parks for a week.

So that's what gets me through that.
Anyways, we just have to get an excused absence slip, bring it to all my classes, and have them sign it about a week before. If it's any sooner, the teachers don't know what to write down for my homework. If I miss a test, I usually just do it usually right before our trip. Dec. is good for us also, since it's in the middle of a semester, so I don't have to worry about exams or anything like that. Oh, and I'll be a junior in high school this year.
I got lucky in 6th grade, when my teacher just said that students should be having more family time, ok'd the trip, and didn't give me any homework. He said I'll just catch up when I return. Which is what happened. Because of that, I was worry free the entire trip, which made it all the more fun.:sohappy:

This is usually our only vacation, so the teachers are usually fine with it.

I'm glad our school is ok with vacation time, because some of you guys make it seem like your schools are jails.:dazzle: But usually, there is nothing you can do.

Catch 22 said:

I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK it is illegal without school permission and, in our area at least, they are very hot on pursuing unapproved absences.

My 11 year old has just started at senior school today and their policy is that they will not approve term time vacations under ANY circumstances.

Our 7 year old is allowed up to 10 school days, which must be pre-approved and for good reason.

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Bravo, UK!

wdwmomof3 said:

That is nice that your school already has the forms. I hope that you have a great vacation!!! :wave:

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Thanks! I hope that you have a great vacation as well! :wave:

This will be the first time we take our son out of school for a vacation. We moved to this school last year and apparently it is common practice to take your child out for vacations. For our WDW trip in May, we waited till the day after school let out to go, but from now on we are taking our vacations during the school year. I am taking him out for 5 days after Thanksgiving for DL this year and 4 days in October 2008 for WDW. This way we get to attend special holiday times without the crazy crowds and save money for more vacations.

Besides, we have teachers that take vacations in the middle of the year and our students get substitutes. Where my mom teaches, she gets 10 personal days a year (so she is taking off for our Oct 2008 with us).

Since my son's school only has 29 students there is no point in trying to be secretive about where we are going, but there is no problem since he does not miss that much school and is allowed (under TX law) to miss up to 18 days (excused) and still be promoted to the next grade. It is very important for my kids to spend time with us, so I do not feel bad about taking him out. Enjoy your trip.

Princess Ariel said:

This will be the first time we take our son out of school for a vacation. We moved to this school last year and apparently it is common practice to take your child out for vacations. For our WDW trip in May, we waited till the day after school let out to go, but from now on we are taking our vacations during the school year. I am taking him out for 5 days after Thanksgiving for DL this year and 4 days in October 2008 for WDW. This way we get to attend special holiday times without the crazy crowds and save money for more vacations.

Besides, we have teachers that take vacations in the middle of the year and our students get substitutes. Where my mom teaches, she gets 10 personal days a year (so she is taking off for our Oct 2008 with us).

Since my son's school only has 29 students there is no point in trying to be secretive about where we are going, but there is no problem since he does not miss that much school and is allowed (under TX law) to miss up to 18 days (excused) and still be promoted to the next grade. It is very important for my kids to spend time with us, so I do not feel bad about taking him out. Enjoy your trip.

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I get ten personal days a year, too, but I'm not allowed to take any more than two consecutive days, unless it is for bereavement purposes.

I won't weigh in on the "taking kids out of school" debate, because my opinion is probably a very unpopular one.