Would you pull your kids out of school for a Disney vacation?

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

I have always taken my children out in the past, but haven't since 2009 cruise.
This past Dec we went for a full week to Disney.
Normally my kids have great attendance, but go figure DD13 was sick 3x b4 we even left!
AND, she is very serious about her school work, and we had to listen to her panic about not understanding some of her homework, and her complete unraveling thinking her grades were going to suffer, etc...never again!!
All turned out fine, her report card came home yesterday, straight As with a few A+, as we knew she would have, but she's too much of a perfectionist to go thru it again.
Next trip, I'll try to plan it over days they have off for conferences, and maybe pull them for 2 days.
Elementary, I wouldn't be too worried, DS11 is in 5th grade and also has fantastic grades, but I will say his math test the week after we got back was his worse test ever...

I'm returning for a quick MNSSHP trip, and I decided to not pull the older ones for this trip, just me and DS2 and my oldest DD19..

 

[MSSANDRA]

Oldest DS is a senior in collage, youngest in 2nd grade. We took oldest out for WDW every other year through middle school. Some off years we took him out for travel other places. NEVER a problem and no regrets. Will do same with little guy. Could not do high school with older one. Way to many honors and AP
classes to make that work. Do check with your school system to know the policy and be sure you are ok with any consequences. I never asked the schools permission, but respectively told them they would be out.

 

[smiths02]

I work for the school system, so no for our family because of that. Also no because I see how NCLB and other laws penalize schools when children miss school.

I would make an exception for military spouse, ailing family member bucket list, etc but not just to save money or avoid heat or crowds.

 

[ilovedisneymm]

Yes! Then again, we make our own school schedule.

 

[mirak]

Depends on how old the kids are. Up to maybe 3rd or 4th grade Ok. Otherwise, I think it starts to send the wrong message to the kids to skip school for vacation.

It also depends on how many days they're going to miss. If you're just looking to extend a holiday weekend by a day or two into a 4-5 day trip, that's different than missing a whole week.

 

[adrienne21snow]

My five year old will be missing the two days before Spring Break because the break in airfare (and crowds) was too good to pass up. She has perfect attendance otherwise and it's two days-of Kindergarten. I think she'll be ok.

 

[chcmama]

We have and will be taking our kids out of school for vacations. I have a high schooler, middle schooler and grade schooler. We wouldn't take them out if we felt they would struggle too much and we don't take them out longer than they feel ok with. We always talk to teachers ahead of time and it is not something we do every year either. My parents never took us out of school but when I look at the whole scheme of things, my kids missing a few days of school once in a while for a family vacation isn't going to have any long term effects on them. Of course two of my kids have cystic fibrosis and since we have no idea what the future holds for them, we feel like having family time together and them having lots of experiences is a higher priority than other people might.

 

[Feberin]

I also have a four almost five year old and am tentatively planning a trip a couple years from now. I have no problem going during the school year however we will be figuring it out so it overlaps with at least one day they're already off from school ideally some sort of teacher workshop day not an actual holiday causing an increase in crowds. The school system my kids will be attending allows up to 4 unexcused absences in a quarter so if they don't miss a full week we'll be fine.

My dad pulled my brother and I twice of Disney trips. One when I was in high school he surprised us with so I wasn't able to get any work or anything. I was very nervous about making up work from that trip but luckily for me there was a bomb threat at school and they closed early anyways. And my homeroom teacher marked it down as an excused absence, which he shouldn't have done so I was able to make up any work. I'm not sure if we'd pull kids out in high school but for elementary especially lower elementary I don't see a problem with it.

 

[amyren]

DD is in first grade and we took her out the last 3 days before Christmas break for our Dec trip. I told the teacher ahead of time and she said to "have fun". She hadn't missed any other days previous to that. I'd do it again but I do hear it's more frowned upon the older they get but really that depends on the school.

 

[robinb]

I pulled my DD out for Disney vacation once. She missed the first partial week of school because we went to Disneyland Tokyo at the end of our 3-week vacation to China and Japan. That was in 5th grade I think.

She's in high school now and missing school is no longer an option.

I think it's ok to take elementary school kids out but I can't help but roll my eyes when folks try to put an educational spin on their vacation.

 

[btk2333]

I was pulled out for vacations lots of time. My senior year of high school, I missed two days of classes for MNSSHP while taking 5 AP classes and my grades didn't suffer, I wasn't behind, Etc.

I also missed a couple days of college classes to travel for football games last semester. Didn't affect my grades. It really depends on the child and their ability to catch up/work ahead/ learn independently.

same here- my parents would take me out of school for things like vacations- Cubs games- baseball tournaments- they made sure I had spoken to my teachers in advance and was prepared. I've gone through undergrad and grad school now and have the same philosophy with my kids- I remember those family vacations- I remember going to the Cubs Bartman game in 2003 etc.- I don't remember what my grade was on my Calculus test the next week.

It all depends on how good your kids are at getting ahead/ catching up. Especially for kids that young I would take them out. It is a good way to build good habits. IMO- when I have a vacation coming up now, I know that I need to work extra hard before and after to prepare for and catch up, just like I did when I missed days of school.

Life is about experiences IMO- I wouldn't trade the memories of those trips for getting a couple more percentage points on a 9th grade English paper or passing a 2nd grade spelling test.

 

[Dawnlight]

At that age I wouldn't hesitate a minute; I'd take them out and enjoy being able to go at a non-peak time.

I have 2 in high school, 2 in middle school, and 2 in elementary now and I wouldn't take them out due to the high schoolers' schedules. The did miss 2 days before the start of winter vacation, but a full week or more I wouldn't do. I asked for their input and they agreed they didn't want to have to make up the work, especially one of my boys taking AP classes.

 

[Kellykins1218]

I used to take my son, now 20, out every year so we could go in January or Feb. We've taken our youngest two out several times to go in the spring and fall and have no plans to stop.

 

[USCAnna]

I am a seventh grade teacher. I am absolutely okay with my students missing school for short vacations. I think if you give the teacher enough advance notice and your work with your child to keep up with instruction and assignments it isn't a problem. I can't say that every teacher will feel the same way, but for me family time (even during the school year) is very important. I personally wish I had the flexibility to go throughout the school year.

 

[cjbcam]

I would not even hesitate. My kids are in 6,4,1 and pre school. We have taken them out the last 2 years. After our first real holiday we figured it was really good for our family to just disconnect and spend time with just us. My DH is a workaholic and my kids are in different sports and I coach a team my kids aren't on so its hard to spend a lot of time as a family.
My DH slow time at work is when we take the kids out. Life is short and kids grow fast and in the grande scheme missing a week of school a year is not really a big deal.

 

[MomBird]

I took my kids out for Disney vacations until the oldest was in 3rd grade. That was the year that standardized testing started in our state and I didn't want to risk them falling behind.

I made sure they did as much as possible in advance and let teachers know well in advance. I wouldn't hesitate to do that again at those ages. It just gets more difficult to miss at older grades. The make-up/absence policies differ so I personally wouldn't have them miss school for vacation in middle or high school.

Between 3rd-5th grades, for my oldest, I scheduled trips in early Nov. when they had off for two days in a row and only had to miss a few days school (aka Jersey week since NJ gets that whole week off and there are tons of families from NJ who use that week for Disney).

 

[leahlefler]

We are taking my 3rd grader and 2nd grader out this year. We can't do summers in Florida as my 2nd grader has heat intolerance (part of a syndrome), so cooler weather is the only time we can do a trip. We are meeting my parents in Florida, and my kids haven't seen their grandmother in over a year and their grandfather in almost 3 years - it is actually cheaper to do Disney World together than to just fly to California and back (which would also require 2 weeks away for our family - and would also necessitate taking the kids out of school). Both kids are at the top of their class and we will be obtaining schoolwork prior to departure.

 

[Lavaluma]

Before taking your kids out of school, make sure you understand your school's attendance policy. We went when my oldest was in Kindergarten. We figured it was worth the trip for him to miss 5 days of school. His teacher knew ahead of time and gave some fun homework for him to do on the trip. He was healthy and rarely missed any days in preschool and had not missed a day prior to our November trip. Between January and the end of school, he missed an additional 10 days for pneumonia, croup twice and a few other illnesses. Thankfully, a few of his absences coincided with snow days or he would have missed even more days. The attendance policy in the school handbook caused us to start worrying if he would be in danger of missing too many days to pass Kindergarten. We made sure to get a doctor's note for every absence. Luckily, our school is more lenient on sick days than the handbook states and we didn't have any problems.
Since then, we've been leery of taking our children out of school for any reason. The amount of time they miss for sick days are rough enough. Now, DS is in 3rd grade and would have a difficult time making up his work if he missed a week.

 

[penguinande]

Thanks for all the input! I have never had a child in school so didn't know what to expect. We rarely took vacations when I was a kid (for financial reasons) so had no real reference point from that perspective either. I can definitely understand why some parents and teachers might think it's not okay, but I think I am with the majority on this one. Dd has excelled socially and academically in preschool and I have no reason to expect she might do otherwise in kindergarten and beyond. If things are going well, I think I will just talk to her teacher in advance to make sure it is okay.

 

[Karebear]

To the OP, I notice that you are from CA--we are too. I have pulled my kids out of school for trips to WDW. In our school district, you can do "independent study" for the days that you miss. If you do this, then the school still gets the money from the district for your child being "present at school". The teachers were much happier when I did this as the school was not out any of their funding. The work wasn't much at all and was easily done on the plane ride both to and from Florida. Hope this helps!