Do you take your kids out of school?

[britdaw]

I'm beginning to plan our next trip to WDW, and I'm sitting here looking at when the crowds are the worst... We normally plan the trips around when the kids are out of school but I don't want to go on Spring Break, and I don't want to sweat to death in the summer. I am thinking about maybe taking my girls out of school for the next trip, in the spring of 2016...

Do you take your kids out of school for WDW? If so, have teachers/schools ever pushed back about them missing so many days?

 

[stevehousse]

You will get a lot of debate on this one! LOL Personally, I will take my kids out of school as long as they are doing well. We actually have a trip coming up in the beginning of May, and my son in kindergarten and my sister who is a sophomore in high school wil both be missing a week.

Not sure where u live, but some states are very strict on attendance and do frown upon vacations during school, so it really all depends where u live. I have lived in both IL and currently WI, and don't have a problem taking them out of school there.

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

It depends on so many things -

1) How old is your child / children
2) How well are they performing at school
3) What is their normal school attendance record like
4) Proximity of the trip to exams / how important are the exams
5) Will the work they miss be repeated, is it essential to ongoing work, can they afford to miss it
6) What is the country's / states policy on kids being taken out of school for a holiday. How many day schooling will they miss
7) Will the school provide work for them to complete while they're away AND as a parent, will YOU make the time for them to complete this work.

Finally, its THEIR education. Is YOUR trip going to affect their future ????

 

[officialtom]

Not a WDW story, but my parents took my brothers and me out of school when I was in grade 11 thinking it wouldn't be a big deal to miss the first five days of classes. My mom was going to Europe for work, so it was a once in a lifetime chance to tour a bit while having accommodations (and her flights) paid for. So off we went.

Well, I got back, I realized that I was incredibly behind, particularly in my university-prep Chemistry class. I spent the rest of the year with tutors and extra help from the teacher trying desperately to pass the class. In the end, I passed, and even did relatively well in first year university Chem. But it made for a very tough year playing catch up.

Not telling this as a horror story. It's just the truth!

 

[Laura]

When my kids were really little I did (like Kindergaten). Now they are in middle school so I don't want them to fall behind. If there's nothing going on in school (such as the day before a holiday break when all they do is watch movies) I will pull them for that day for a trip.

 

[WWWD]

When the kids were younger, we took them out for a week at a time and never had any negative feedback from any of their teachers - most even expressed approval. Now that the oldest is in high school, we don't take them out for a week, but will take them out a couple of days before or after a school break. Mostly this is for saving on flights.

Now if it was an educational trip, like seeing Europe or hiking a National Park, I would entertain the idea of taking my child out of high school for a week. Disney is no longer an educational trip for my kids. As the officaltom said, certain times can cause more disruptions than others, but those memories are worth it.

Also, ask the teachers what the kids are going to miss and spend an hour or so a day working on it. We did homework in the mornings before heading to the parks and at the airport. You'd be surprised how much you can get done with your child 1:1. School moves much slower since they have a 20+:1 ratio.

 

[4disneylovers]

I took kids out before my son hit high school. Now he doesn't want to miss school and he is a very responsible student so we won't do it anymore. His GPA is to important.

Our school had a policy principal had to approve time out. Never had a problem. We did work on airplane and none while there.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Use too. Don't anymore.

 

[Sans Souci]

When my son is ill, he comes home with mountains of homework when he returns to school. I can't imagine missing a week!

My MIL used to take my husband and his siblings out of school for vacations because it was cheaper to go when school was in session. My husband said he hated it. It meant loads of homework to make up and trying not only to catch up, but to simultaneously learn and complete homework for current classes.

I think there are intangibles your child misses when s/he misses school. It's one thing to blitz through homework on vacation, and quite another to be physically present in a class. JMO, of course.

 

[Captainvideo]

You will get a lot of debate on this one! LOL Personally, I will take my kids out of school as long as they are doing well.

Most trips to Disneyworld are planned too far in advance, so maybe the trip is used as motivation to do well in school. However I can't see a parent pulling the plug on a trip a month or two before if their child isn't doing well in school, not when flights and room deposits are paid for.

I've pulled my kids out of school after a half day the Friday before a school vacation, but we pay for it dearly in higher flight and hotel costs. In my opinion if your kids are in preschool I wouldn't worry about it, grades 1-8 and high school a day of missed school at the most.

 

[popcenturylover]

Our youngest DD is in Kindergarten. We are taking her out to go in May but, she is a good student(so far) & hasn't missed any school.(so far) Going forward though, I'm not sure how often we'll do it because we want her to excel & not fall behind.

 

[allidog1]

When I was in elementary school my parents would take me and my brother out of school for Disney trips, and I don't remember it ever being a problem because the teachers gave us the work and they made it into an educational trip (like countries at epcot, spending money, etc). However in middle and high school is was harder just because so much stuff was going on.

 

[Gabe1]

I'm beginning to plan our next trip to WDW, and I'm sitting here looking at when the crowds are the worst... We normally plan the trips around when the kids are out of school but I don't want to go on Spring Break, and I don't want to sweat to death in the summer. I am thinking about maybe taking my girls out of school for the next trip, in the spring of 2016...

Do you take your kids out of school for WDW? If so, have teachers/schools ever pushed back about them missing so many days?

Yes I did. My kids are spread in age so for almost 2 decades I took them out of school despite school board policy.
We went every fall for 2 weeks. I requested homework they did it before we left. We'd leave on a Monday and their last day was Thursday. As we packed and organized over Friday, Saturday, Sunday they did every bit of their homework over 3 days. They did it gleefully to be free of it for 2 weeks. Being an elected school board member it brought some extra heat from their teachers. Some were great and believed in family time some were as obnoxious as they could possibly be. By high school I just flat out lied (a different school district) and claimed a family issue. The issue was family matters.

I now have kids in their 20s. And my wisdom now is in the spectrum of K-12 a few weeks here and there it doesn't matter if the kids are raised to learn and do well in school. Both of my kids graduated college one with the highest honors from a top University. My husbands job did not allow for him to have time off at school break times. Family time matters as much as educational time no matter who tells you differently. I have no regrets, neither do my children.

 

[G00fyDad]

We have in the past and will this September. Our decision was made in an attempt to go when the crowds are smaller. My children have always had the understanding that if we take them out of school for Disney then they are going to spend the 3 hour flight there and 3 hour flight back working on assignments from school since they are given this work before the trips. They will also work on it on the 1.5 hour drive to and 1.5 hour drive from Clearwater during the trip. They don't get it all done during the trip but it alleviates most of the headache of having it all to do when they return. Our school's have been very lenient on our Disney trips.

 

[Weather_Lady]

My kids are still in elementary school and we've always taken them out of school for vacations. They're great students who otherwise have nearly perfect attendance, and although their absences are not excused, their teachers have always been very cooperative about it. (They lovingly package up the lessons and homework the kids will miss so we can complete it while we're away -- and we make sure the kids do complete it -- and we lovingly bring the teachers back a Disney souvenir. It's a win-win!)

I'm glad we can do it, because as the child of two teachers (meaning that every vacation I had growing up was taken during peak crowds and expensive travel seasons) I appreciate the gift of traveling more inexpensively and with less stress. That being said, if the kids were struggling in school, or the district made it difficult for them to catch up on their return, we wouldn't do it. As @CAPTAIN HOOK said, it all depends on your situation.

 

[ShookieJones]

My parints uzed to take me outta skool all da time so we cud vizit at non busy like times and it never afflicted me poorly.

 

[Hakunamatata]

My parints uzed to take me outta skool all da time so we cud vizit at non busy like times and it never afflicted me poorly.

always comes down to soceoekonomik status

 

[JohnWD]

... and I don't want to sweat to death in the summer. ...

We would go for 2 weeks, one of which was a break, the other a week out of school. But we stopped doing that when our oldest was about 9, and then went almost every year in the summer. At first the summer did seem so hot, but we adjusted by "darting" between attractions & shade, and getting to parks early and taking parts of the afternoon back at the villa. One thing I quickly learned to love about the summer was I could dress the same the whole day - t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. No more needing some warmth for the evening! Our next trip is this September, and is the first time in about 20 years that we will not be there between June & August.

 

[britdaw]

Thanks for all the input, y'all!

I think with my oldest being in middle school, I probably don't need to pull her out for a vacation. I would really like to go in May sometime, but with their school schedule, it's just not possible unless we do a short trip. :\ One or two days, I could see letting them miss. My youngest daughter is in 1st grade, so she's not gonna be missing out on a whole lot. But my oldest would be pretty far behind, and she already struggles in classes like math, so it's probably best to either go in the summer or on a school break.

 

[John C. Shepherd]

We are taking the kids out of school. factors were many on the planning of dates. We picked before PSSA, state testing, we also looked at the age and grades they are getting. lucky my kids are doing great in school, so that is not an issue. Plus they are in Elementary school, 4th grade is the oldest. Now i have requested all school work for the week they are missing has to come home so we can work on it while we are away, so they will be ready for tests when they get back. We are talking math, spelling and language or at worst a science test. The timing will also allow them 2 weeks before state testing starts, so they can be briefed as the other kids.
This is something that noone but you can make the determination on doing, you know your child best and how they will react to the time off of school. This will not make you a bad parent either way.