Taking straight A high schooler out for trip?

[Saracpohl]

I know this is a continuing thread/topic on here, but I was wondering if any of you have taken your high schooler out of school for a week for a vacation, without any problems? We're thinking of going In may, when there's only a couple of weeks left in the school year. She'll be back in time for review of finals and actual finals. She's a sophomore, straight A student in honors classes. We took her out in 7th grade, without any issues.

 

[hollymc3]

I have taken my triplets out for 5 days previously and will be doing so again this year. They are juniors. We will ask for make up work. Quite frankly family / quality time is equally important. They are all honor roll students and rarely miss school otherwise. We will be going in January

 

[rob0519]

Straight A student in high school honor classes. Sorry, no way I take that child out of school for a week. Those classes move really fast and the teachers usually have no tolerance for that long an absence. Go in the first week of June or whenever classes end. Just my opinion, but you did ask.

 

[ninjaprincesst]

The most I take mine out for is two days of course we live in Texas where vacation is not an excused absence and after two days you have to have a doctors note. My daughter was a sophomore last year straight A AP student and almost all of May was taken up with AP review or AP test as well as her finals for her classes like Dance and Drill Team where they had shows that counted as their final .

 

[pajammies]

Well, I am with the crowd of go for it. IF you know your kids can handle it.
I have taken my kids out of school at very age level including a sophomore with AP and honors courses.

She did fine with no problems at all, and the staff was great about it too. That might be where your true problems lie. All schools are different. If you have people on here say the schools won't like it or it will be a disaster, then how are others having success with it. I'm NOT saying it's for everybody, just saying it has worked for us and obviously others on here also.

I will be taking my junior out this year also. I made sure it was not around exam time, and i will re-examine before I make final payment. Grades need to be up and not behind in anything.

 

[LdyApxr]

Another reason I am glad we homeschool. Riley will be a Junior this year and we are going in May and October(when he will be a senior). While it is a virtual academy and he does have teachers he has to turn stuff into, we can work ahead and submit the papers while on our trips(all online, dropbox) so there is no attendance issues, he still has all the work done and his assignments turned in on time. We have let him miss school before we started home schooling him(back in the 5th grade) but that was only a day or two and for things that were happening that only happened once a year.

 

[allgiggles]

I'm just curious... To those who have said that they wouldn't hesitate to take their high school kids out of school for a week because they don't have a problem keeping up with their classes, do your schools have block scheduling or traditional scheduling? Our HS has block scheduling meaning the kids have four 90-minute classes a day with no study halls/free time. Missing a week of school means they missed over 7 hours of classroom instruction/lecture PER CLASS. My parents did take my brother and I out of school for over a week one year when we were in high school and had traditional scheduling (6 or 7 classes lasting 30-40 minutes each day and a few study halls each week). I know we were able to keep up with the work (in fact, I was ahead in a few classes when I came back) but with block scheduling it's way more challenging to keep up with missed work. Like I said in a previous post, my kids have asked us not to take them out of school for vacation because they know how far behind they are when they're out sick for a day or we *do* take them out for a day or two for a family trip. I'm thinking most people on this thread aren't dealing with block scheduling or the teachers at our school require way more work outside the classroom than other schools do for the honors/AP/dual-enrollment classes that my kids are in.

 

[Kate Alan]

I'm just curious... To those who have said that they wouldn't hesitate to take their high school kids out of school for a week because they don't have a problem keeping up with their classes, do your schools have block scheduling or traditional scheduling? Our HS has block scheduling meaning the kids have four 90-minute classes a day with no study halls/free time. Missing a week of school means they missed over 7 hours of classroom instruction/lecture PER CLASS. My parents did take my brother and I out of school for over a week one year when we were in high school and had traditional scheduling (6 or 7 classes lasting 30-40 minutes each day and a few study halls each week). I know we were able to keep up with the work (in fact, I was ahead in a few classes when I came back) but with block scheduling it's way more challenging to keep up with missed work. Like I said in a previous post, my kids have asked us not to take them out of school for vacation because they know how far behind they are when they're out sick for a day or we *do* take them out for a day or two for a family trip. I'm thinking most people on this thread aren't dealing with block scheduling or the teachers at our school require way more work outside the classroom than other schools do for the honors/AP/dual-enrollment classes that my kids are in.

Our high school did block scheduling.

 

[MickeyMomV]

All students and learning environments are different. I think the only person that can give you a good answer on this is your student and their teachers. With everything moving to Tech based learning (laptops and Ipads) she may be able to take a mid day break for 2-3 hours and work on home work and not skip a beat.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I'm just curious... To those who have said that they wouldn't hesitate to take their high school kids out of school for a week because they don't have a problem keeping up with their classes, do your schools have block scheduling or traditional scheduling? Our HS has block scheduling meaning the kids have four 90-minute classes a day with no study halls/free time. Missing a week of school means they missed over 7 hours of classroom instruction/lecture PER CLASS. My parents did take my brother and I out of school for over a week one year when we were in high school and had traditional scheduling (6 or 7 classes lasting 30-40 minutes each day and a few study halls each week). I know we were able to keep up with the work (in fact, I was ahead in a few classes when I came back) but with block scheduling it's way more challenging to keep up with missed work. Like I said in a previous post, my kids have asked us not to take them out of school for vacation because they know how far behind they are when they're out sick for a day or we *do* take them out for a day or two for a family trip. I'm thinking most people on this thread aren't dealing with block scheduling or the teachers at our school require way more work outside the classroom than other schools do for the honors/AP/dual-enrollment classes that my kids are in.

How does that work? Your kids are only in four classes each? How do they take music/art/gym/electives in addition to their core classes? What does that have to do with breaks or study halls? I had a normal 7-class day and never had breaks or study halls. I think your final comment about honors/AP classes is more relevant than block scheduling. I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but the honors/AP kids who are heading to top universities are going to have different academic requirements than the average B-minus student who's heading for the state school. There's nothing wrong with the latter, but it's much more difficult for the former to miss class time.

 

[JennSmith]

I'm just curious... To those who have said that they wouldn't hesitate to take their high school kids out of school for a week because they don't have a problem keeping up with their classes, do your schools have block scheduling or traditional scheduling? Our HS has block scheduling meaning the kids have four 90-minute classes a day with no study halls/free time. Missing a week of school means they missed over 7 hours of classroom instruction/lecture PER CLASS. My parents did take my brother and I out of school for over a week one year when we were in high school and had traditional scheduling (6 or 7 classes lasting 30-40 minutes each day and a few study halls each week). I know we were able to keep up with the work (in fact, I was ahead in a few classes when I came back) but with block scheduling it's way more challenging to keep up with missed work. Like I said in a previous post, my kids have asked us not to take them out of school for vacation because they know how far behind they are when they're out sick for a day or we *do* take them out for a day or two for a family trip. I'm thinking most people on this thread aren't dealing with block scheduling or the teachers at our school require way more work outside the classroom than other schools do for the honors/AP/dual-enrollment classes that my kids are in.

My daughter has a block schedule - A days and B days - four 80 minute classes each day. If she is gone for 6 days she will miss 240 minutes, (4 hours) for each class. There are other schools in our district that do not have block schedules - they have eight 40 minute classes each day. If she were to be on that schedule then she would still miss 240 minutes of each class. This is including breaks/free time. I think maybe either your math is wrong or I am misunderstanding you...if you have four 90 minute classes each day and you rotate days then even on the classes that you have 3 times per week you would only miss 4.50 hours of that class.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

My daughter has a block schedule - A days and B days - four 80 minute classes each day. If she is gone for 6 days she will miss 240 minutes, (4 hours) for each class. There are other schools in our district that do not have block schedules - they have eight 40 minute classes each day. If she were to be on that schedule then she would still miss 240 minutes of each class. This is including breaks/free time. I think maybe either your math is wrong or I am misunderstanding you...if you have four 90 minute classes each day and you rotate days then even on the classes that you have 3 times per week you would only miss 4.50 hours of that class.

That's the source of my confusion as well. It sounds like the previous poster was implying that her kids have four 90 minute blocks of the same four classes every single day, meaning her kids would be in math, science, social studies, and English and that's it. No foreign language or any other elective.

I can't imagine that's right. No college on Earth would accept that transcript.

 

[JennSmith]

That's the source of my confusion as well. It sounds like the previous poster was implying that her kids have four 90 minute blocks of the same four classes every single day, meaning her kids would be in math, science, social studies, and English and that's it. No foreign language or any other elective.

I can't imagine that's right. No college on Earth would accept that transcript.

I agree...I think maybe they didn't realize what they were typing...I mean unless instead of A days and B days they only take 4 classes for one semester and then switch to the other 4? I dunno...

 

[dreamfinder]

My parent never had problems taking me out of class for a week for vacations, all the way up through the end of High School. (Straight A, honor roll, AP, blah blah blah) But this was before school districts starting having their funding tied to attendance and made vacations the equivalent of truency. I had to do the catch up, be it before/during the trip or after depending on the teacher.

 

[pajammies]

I'm just curious... To those who have said that they wouldn't hesitate to take their high school kids out of school for a week because they don't have a problem keeping up with their classes, do your schools have block scheduling or traditional scheduling? Our HS has block scheduling meaning the kids have four 90-minute classes a day with no study halls/free time. Missing a week of school means they missed over 7 hours of classroom instruction/lecture PER CLASS. My parents did take my brother and I out of school for over a week one year when we were in high school and had traditional scheduling (6 or 7 classes lasting 30-40 minutes each day and a few study halls each week). I know we were able to keep up with the work (in fact, I was ahead in a few classes when I came back) but with block scheduling it's way more challenging to keep up with missed work. Like I said in a previous post, my kids have asked us not to take them out of school for vacation because they know how far behind they are when they're out sick for a day or we *do* take them out for a day or two for a family trip. I'm thinking most people on this thread aren't dealing with block scheduling or the teachers at our school require way more work outside the classroom than other schools do for the honors/AP/dual-enrollment classes that my kids are in.

My daughter has block scheduling and has honors classes and AP classes. But like I said before, all kids and schools are different. Her teachers gave her some work ahead of time, and she did bust her butt before we left, but when we came back, she was mostly caught up.
She did not work on the plane or on vacation either, but it was a huge advantage that she was given info on what was due for when she came back. That allowed her to finish it ahead of schedule.

 

[Saracpohl]

Thank you all for your responses! My daughter is in all honors classes, with 6 classes a day, not block scheduling. She is in all honors classes, but the AP classes at her school don't start until junior year, so I know next year would be harder to take her out. She is a very organized student who usually finishes her work ahead of schedule. Her teachers compliment her on her organizational skills all the time. I'm just hoping these factors work in our favor?

 

[allgiggles]

That's the source of my confusion as well. It sounds like the previous poster was implying that her kids have four 90 minute blocks of the same four classes every single day, meaning her kids would be in math, science, social studies, and English and that's it. No foreign language or any other elective.

I can't imagine that's right. No college on Earth would accept that transcript.

That's basically how it is -- every class is only one semester. It can vary -- basically 3 of the 4 classes are the same every day and the other 1 works on an A/B schedule for a few elective type classes and phys ed.. The scheduling system makes it EXTREMELY difficult to work in any arts/music/foreign language classes and that's becoming a major issue in our high school. It has almost gotten to the point where choir, band, and orchestra have to be after-school activities or they overlap with another class and the student is forced to skip lunch to be able to participate in those groups. It is literally impossible to be in choir and take a foreign language in one semester -- they're only offered during mod 3....period. We hired a new superintendent last year who is very pro arts and she is trying to make changes but it's going to take some time. I could go on and on about block scheduling but I won't.

Anyway, it's pretty much standard that you have the same classes every day for half the year and then in switch to all new classes for the second semester. So you only have Humanities, Math, etc. for half the year. That's why it's so difficult to miss more than a day or two of school because everything is so condensed. And since the AP tests are given about a month before school is over, those classes are even MORE intense as they have less time to cover all of the material and still have time for reviews and practice.

 

[JennSmith]

That's basically how it is -- every class is only one semester. It can vary -- basically 3 of the 4 classes are the same every day and the other 1 works on an A/B schedule for a few elective type classes and phys ed.. The scheduling system makes it EXTREMELY difficult to work in any arts/music/foreign language classes and that's becoming a major issue in our high school. It has almost gotten to the point where choir, band, and orchestra have to be after-school activities or they overlap with another class and the student is forced to skip lunch to be able to participate in those groups. It is literally impossible to be in choir and take a foreign language in one semester -- they're only offered during mod 3....period. We hired a new superintendent last year who is very pro arts and she is trying to make changes but it's going to take some time. I could go on and on about block scheduling but I won't.

Anyway, it's pretty much standard that you have the same classes every day for half the year and then in switch to all new classes for the second semester. So you only have Humanities, Math, etc. for half the year. That's why it's so difficult to miss more than a day or two of school because everything is so condensed. And since the AP tests are given about a month before school is over, those classes are even MORE intense as they have less time to cover all of the material and still have time for reviews and practice.

Yea, then I can see why it would be more difficult for your child to miss than one who has A and B days...that stinks

 

[aw14]

Speaking as a High School Vice Principal and the person in charge of attendance, make sure to check with your schools attendance polices. Students can and will lose credit for missing more than the allowed amount pursuant to the policy. That lost credit will either be regained through online credit recovery classes at parent cost, or by having to take it again.

I know I have parents who complain to me about it, specifically when their child passes the class. However, there are state requirements that all districts must follow.

 

[aw14]

That's basically how it is -- every class is only one semester. It can vary -- basically 3 of the 4 classes are the same every day and the other 1 works on an A/B schedule for a few elective type classes and phys ed.. The scheduling system makes it EXTREMELY difficult to work in any arts/music/foreign language classes and that's becoming a major issue in our high school. It has almost gotten to the point where choir, band, and orchestra have to be after-school activities or they overlap with another class and the student is forced to skip lunch to be able to participate in those groups. It is literally impossible to be in choir and take a foreign language in one semester -- they're only offered during mod 3....period. We hired a new superintendent last year who is very pro arts and she is trying to make changes but it's going to take some time. I could go on and on about block scheduling but I won't.

Anyway, it's pretty much standard that you have the same classes every day for half the year and then in switch to all new classes for the second semester. So you only have Humanities, Math, etc. for half the year. That's why it's so difficult to miss more than a day or two of school because everything is so condensed. And since the AP tests are given about a month before school is over, those classes are even MORE intense as they have less time to cover all of the material and still have time for reviews and practice.

that schedule is called a semester block. There are many variations of block scheduling. There are every other day blocks, alternating drop blocks etc...I am an A/B (every other day) block fan

I actually dislike the semester block a great deal. The A/B mimics a college schedule, where the semester can leave instructional gaps. Another topic for another day

 

[allgiggles]

Yea, then I can see why it would be more difficult for your child to miss than one who has A and B days...that stinks

Yes, it does. We've (parents) have tried to push for an A/B scheduling where the A days are block and the B days are traditional so that kids can fit things in like foreign language, music, etc and the board just won't go for it. And we've been trying for over 10 years. Hopefully the new superintendent can make some improvements. We've had this type of scheduling for over 15 years and parents are constantly complaining about it and how confining it is. We're one of the few school districts in the are who still has block scheduling. The others have gone back to traditional scheduling or a combination of the two. It's really bad for kids who have a serious illness and miss many days of school. They have to get a tutor almost immediately. If we had traditional scheduling, I'd probably take my kids out of school for a week for vacation because I'm confident they could keep up with the work without having to spend several hours a day on vacation doing school work.