Gambling with snow days - booking day after school ends?

I live in ct. when we have a bad winter, we run out of snow dats. One year we went almost to the end of June
 
Thank you all for your replies. A few of you asked, our daughter will be in 2nd grade next year. Someone else noted that mid-June isn't that much more cooler than August - which is my husband's sticking point also. Still not sure what we'll do. If nothing else, we will add a week after school ends. Our DD would be heartbroken if she missed that coveted field day! Thank you again for replying!
 
This year we gambled and lost. We have 5 snow days built into our school calendar but we went over. I had to change the dates of our summer trip from the end of June to mid-August.
 
For me, it would depend on the school district's approach to snow days. When we lived in upstate NY, they would have 5 days built in. Some years, they'd need more. If we had a fluke year and we didn't need all five, they'd give the kids the Friday before Memorial Day off. A second day would be Good Friday.

Then we moved to New Hampshire. They built 0 snow days into the school schedule. It still sounds stupid to me. But, smarter minds than mine decided this, so graduation and last day of school kept moving out.

Now we live in North Carolina. Not so much snow days as weather days down here. They build 5 into the school calendar. Usually, that's plenty, but this past January, we had 2 inches of snow, then a deep freeze. The kids got 4 days off from school, plus a late start on Day 5. It cracked us up--seriously? Four days off from school for 2" of snow?!? But, our city has 1 snowplow. No sand, no salt. People don't know how to drive in any amount of snow or ice. Luckily, we didn't need any additional weather days.

So, down here--yeah, I'd book based on the stated last day of school. In our previous two districts--no, I wouldn't.

We live in NH. Each district decides on their own schedule. They need to have 180 days of school. Our district builds so many snow days into it. But is happens more often than not that we need more. Many principals here will let them go if they already have vacation plans as not much gets done that last week. They have also had so many snow days a few times that the district has had to apply to the state board of education to reduce the number of days they need to be in session that year. I would just plan your vacation and not worry. That being said I always check with the school administration first to find out what their policy is.
 
Our schools CAN'T add more days to the end of the school year as per the contract with the teacher's union. The last day of school is set in stone, if they were to add days at the end, they would have to push back the start of the new school year as the new school year must start a minimum of X amount of days after the end of previous school years last day. Instead to make up lost time they extended the school day by a few minutes.
 
Our schools CAN'T add more days to the end of the school year as per the contract with the teacher's union. The last day of school is set in stone, if they were to add days at the end, they would have to push back the start of the new school year as the new school year must start a minimum of X amount of days after the end of previous school years last day. Instead to make up lost time they extended the school day by a few minutes.

Interesting contract. I wonder how that got negotiated. Most teacher contracts have set working hours and number of days, but the length of the year is flexible. Maybe some teachers in your districts union own timeshares with set weeks.
 
Report cards are handed out to students the last day of school, so if DD9 missed the last couple of days it wouldn't even be counted on the report card as the are completed earlier in the week in order to be ready to be distributed on the last day. The last few days of school are as follows for DD, Dance performance assembly, field trip to the forest to do animal tracking, sports day, and clean out your desk and the classroom. Secondary school they may have Provincial exams earlier in the week, but I wouldn't book until I knew what the exam schedule was. This would be available back in January.
 


Interesting contract. I wonder how that got negotiated. Most teacher contracts have set working hours and number of days, but the length of the year is flexible. Maybe some teachers in your districts union own timeshares with set weeks.
It's a Province wide mandate, the school year can't go past June 30 or start before Labour Day, unless the are on the modified year round school calendar. DD started the current school year September 5, 2017 and her last day is June 29, 2018. She will go back September 4, 2018 in the fall.
 
DGD is not a student of the NYC public school system but at least one of my children was and back then they took school attendance seriously. Nice to see that's still happening.
I worked for NYC DOE three years ago in my first teaching position. Except the commute, it was such a pleasure.

Lateness was rarely an issue, and some of my students commuted up to 1 1/2 hours from elsewhere by bus, train and walking. It was unusual for a kid to be absent and if they were out they might do any or all of the following:

they might tell you ahead of time and plan for missed work/tests
see you when they came in for missed work/tests
brought a note and handed it to the office and showed a photocopy to each teacher stating why they missed class
come in for part of the day (before or after the doctor/dentist appointment)

That first year only one of my kids didn't pass the state assessment and I attribute much of it to their and their parents work ethic and commitment- which included attendance.

Definitely not like that where I am now.
 
Hi -

For those of you who live in colder climates - have you ever booked a trip immediately after school ends? Did you luck out and not have any snow days?

We are only two years into our school years - 1st year = 0 snow days, 2nd year = 1 snow day. Not a lot of history to go off of.

Trying to determine our 2019 dates and would like some experience/words of wisdom.

**I should add - because of our work schedules, we need to go as early in June as possible. If not June our only other choices are mid-August (HOT) or taking our child out of school.

Thank you!
If you think about it if they use the snow days it's so hot in the schools and they learn nothing so don't stress.
 
We travel often in August-I was in education before I retired and my daughter and her husband are teachers. It’s hot, but parks are open late-we go early, take a break and then go back in the evening.
 
I'm a teacher married to a teacher, with 3 kids who are students.

We go in July, sometimes August. Period. Missing school for a vacation is not an option.

Those long hot summer days at Disney are wonderful!!! We get to the parks at rope drop, and tour until lunch. Then we head back to the resort to sleep and swim until dinner, and spend the evening in the parks. In all our trips, I've only waited more than 20 minutes for a ride-- a "rookie mistake" on our first trip that had us waiting 90 minutes for Toy Story Mania. Never again. We manage rope drop and fastpasses, we see everything we want and miss the worst of the crowds.

And, dare I say: so many kids count swimming as a top priority on any vacation-- even WDW!

Stock up on ponchos and misters, and go in August.
 
We live in NE and will be doing this next year. We booked a Disney cruise for the last week of June. My oldest is starting K in the fall so this is our first year in public school and I have no idea if it will be frowned upon or not. She will only miss school if we have 4 snow days or more though, plus it's not like she will miss tests or anything, so I was willing to take the gamble this time around.

We went to WDW in August last year and it was insanely hot, but a good thing about it is that towards the end of August, the crowds are a bit less and there are more deals to be had. I would do that again in the future if I didn't want to take the chance on missing the final school days. We were there over Labor Day weekend and it wasn't as crowded as I expected.
 
We add days to the end, it is extremely rare that we don't. We have 4 built in the calendar, but it's rare we don't have more than that (Eastern PA). Last year I booked the week after school and we lucked out. If I had booked the same week this year we would have missed two days of school. Elementary school is no big deal to miss. However, our middle schools and high school have finals up to the 2nd last day of school. So now that my daughter is heading to MS next year, we have decided August is going to be our time to do Disney. We are going later in the month when a lot of schools around the country are back.
 
Super jealous of all of these schools with built in snow days. Our district was supposed to get out May 24th and we were in school til June 8th due to a ton of snow days, an eclipse day, a flood day, teacher strike day, lol.... we had a lot of random days off this year. I say go for it though! The last week is always a little hectic anyways. I’d give yourself one extra week or a few extra days, just to be safe.
 
OP here - we are already on our FOURTH day out this winter. Glad I didn't gamble after all. Spring Break will busy but at least I won't be sweating the dates.

Thank you for all the responses. Always neat to hear how others perspectives.
 
It's funny, I see my response above and how I was gambling with missing school if we had more than 4 snow days. We are headed into February and have not had a single snow day! We are in MA so this is unusual. I'm actually hoping for a few snow days now b/c otherwise I don't know what I will do with my kiddo that week.
 
OP here - we are already on our FOURTH day out this winter. Glad I didn't gamble after all. Spring Break will busy but at least I won't be sweating the dates.

Thank you for all the responses. Always neat to hear how others perspectives.

I'm going to take a gamble and bet you are from the Midwest. Wisconsin, Chicagoland, or Michigan to be exact. Just some fun guessing on my 3rd snow day off...
 

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