Texas school attendance policy and cruise dates

[breakingd_awn]

We don't live in TX (live in Ohio, north of Columbus), but yes we do take our dd out of school for cruise vacations. Last year was the first year we did it. We are going on another cruise in a few weeks, she will miss 5 days of school. We have another cruise booked for Jan 2019, she will miss 6 days for it. She is in fourth grade, we probably won't take her out once she gets in high school. Right now it's not that difficult for her to make up the work she misses, she's an A student and usually only misses 1 or 2 days because of illnesses during the school year. We can only cruise during Jan-March, due to hubby's job, so if we want to do any kind of family vacation, she will be missing some school.

We're also north of Columbus we've always taken them out of of school. We couldn't afford to go any other time.

 

[Summer2018]

I have friends in a state with year round school and they love it for vacation planning but not for childcare during breaks. The one nice thing with a long summer break is summer camp if parents work. Good on you for homeschooling. Definitely on my mind lately.

I agree with all of the above. As a teacher, I need those 8 weeks off to recover from the school year and all it entails. The older I get and the more parenting changes (not for the better), the more I need that extended break. At the end of August, I'm rejuvenated and ready for new challenges ahead, and trust me, there are always many challenges where I teach.

 

[buzznina]

I guess I'm lucky as most of my non-teacher friends here in Ontario. I get 4 weeks vacation plus 1 week of sick days that can be used as vacation. I also get a bunch of days for staying after hours so most years I end up with 6 weeks.
I usually take a week off in January, week off in March or April, 2 weeks in July and August and a week off at Christmas. That leaves me with a bunch of lose days for extended weekends, appts etc.
I'm not sure about retail or part time, but full-time professionals, government and office staff here get 3 weeks to start.

Man, that's sweet As for part timers, it is up to the company, but by law, here in the states, they do not have too, nor have to pay them holiday pay. I have worked at a mortgage company, CPA firm, a Mortgage service computer company, Municipality software company, a city and now a Gas company. And all but one of them started at 5-10 days of vacation and then increased after so many years. Best job in regards to vacation, for me, I got 20 PTO days and it went up 1 day per year you worked. If you are self-employed like my DW, then she gets 0 paid vacation or sick days, so if she misses work that means zero $$, nor has any health benefits.

 

[bumbershoot]

Where the heck do you live Europe. LOL The average is 10 days and to go a step further, 23% of Americans get zero days of paid vacation.

If the second amazon HQ opens nearby, go work there...

Most people I know in the states get at least 3 weeks off.. on average we all have 4 weeks or even more PAID

Same, but since most of the people I know (and talk about time off with) work for Amazon, I’m pulling my sample size from one employer lol.

I guess I'm lucky as most of my non-teacher friends here in Ontario. I get 4 weeks vacation plus 1 week of sick days that can be used as vacation. I also get a bunch of days for staying after hours so most years I end up with 6 weeks.
I usually take a week off in January, week off in March or April, 2 weeks in July and August and a week off at Christmas. That leaves me with a bunch of lose days for extended weekends, appts etc.
I'm not sure about retail or part time, but full-time professionals, government and office staff here get 3 weeks to start.

Ah, the rest of the world vs the US...

Only time Dh feels sad for his time off and flexibility is when he talks to his coworkers in Japan and Ireland...

It's getting harder to teach them. Our high school isn't great though. I'm looking at all my options including sending them over to the Junior college. A lot of high school kids do dual enrollment around here. Some even have an associates degree by the time they finish high school.

We have that in WA too and many homeschoolers use them. Of course, it only helps if the college they’ll transfer to accepts the credits.

There are books out there about teaching HS. I actually look forward to that challenge. I’m having fun learning things better this time than I did while in school.



As far as I know the money for schools has ALWAYS and everywhere been tied to rears-in-seats. That’s why they take attendance. As far as I know this is nothing new, nor is it regional.

And yet one school understands that a week of a kid being gone won’t destroy their budget while another school doesn’t get that.

 

[Shanti]

Are teachers allowed to take time off during the school year? I've heard teachers have personal days. I'm not taking about sick days, but personal days.

My kids have been out of school for 20 years, so we never had to worry about this.

I'm an elementary school teacher, in Texas actually, and in my district we get 5 personal leave days per year (this is standard). We aren't supposed to take them all at once unless it's for a documented health reason (this is also standard). So no, I can't do a week-long cruise while school is in. (Not that I'd even want to: just writing the substitute plans for that would be a multi-day job).

We also have blockout days that we can't use for personal leave, and those include professional development dates, state testing dates, first and last days of the school year, and the days right before and right after major holidays.

This means I always pay a pretty penny for our high-season DCL cruises...

 

[Shanti]

Most people I know in the states get at least 3 weeks off.. on average we all have 4 weeks or even more PAID. But now its a mix PTO, so sick and vacation is blended...wonder if these 2 weeks are for part-time retail??

No, 2 weeks vacation is the average in the U.S. for professional full-time workers, so the people you know aren't representative of the majority. My S.O., for example, is a successful engineer now at the management level with a nice 6-figure salary, and he still only gets 2 weeks per year. That's typical.

Part-time retail workers in the U.S. typically get no paid vacation, no benefits, nothing but a basic paycheck for the hours worked.

 

[Shanti]

Then they should get rid of wasted days of STAAR testing.

Whether to test or not, or even whether to emphasize testing or not, is not up to the teachers, principals, schools or even the district. The state legislature sets policy on standardized testing, exactly how many tests to give, on what subjects & when. They also dictate how schools & districts will be rewarded/punished for test performance.

So many parents complain to teachers & principals about the emphasis on standardized testing in schools. They're complaining to people who don't make the rules. Complain to your local lawmaker if you want the system to change.

On the lighter side, I am amused by how many parents I've spoken to who complain about testing pressure, but who nevertheless evaluate the quality of a school, district & their own child's education via standardized test scores. So the message is, we want top scores, but only without the kids having to really work for them...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So Texas can dictate what is excused and not excused for a school absence? Parents are not capable of this? How can a state be this controlling? Can you take your child out and homeschool them for vacation then re-enroll them?

It's not a Texas thing at all.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

No, 2 weeks vacation is the average in the U.S. for professional full-time workers, so the people you know aren't representative of the majority. My S.O., for example, is a successful engineer now at the management level with a nice 6-figure salary, and he still only gets 2 weeks per year. That's typical.

Part-time retail workers in the U.S. typically get no paid vacation, no benefits, nothing but a basic paycheck for the hours worked.

I tell my husband all the time how lucky he is.

Now granted he's been working for the company for 10 years but still their policy is very nice. A few years ago they merged sick time into vacation time. The way it works for him, as a salaried person, is he can store up to double his yearly vacation bank. He accrues vacation days each month but once he hits that max point in his bank he will no longer accrue any more time (that's about the only down part).

For probably 3 to 4 years now he's had 10 weeks of vacation each year! Each year he gets 5 weeks of vacation and because he can store double that it amounts to 10 weeks of vacation per year. He has a few times stopped accruing vacation as he hit his max-he doesn't take enough vacation time ends up being the problem. We do take vacations but he accrues those days back quickly. The thing is if he has a doctor's appointment he doesn't take vacation time to do that. He just leaves and depending on the time of day comes back to work or makes it up later. Now if he wants to take time off he either has to take it as a 4hr block (half day) or an 8hr block (whole day).

The only retail company I ever got vacation time was when I worked at JCP. I however was only accruing vacation time but because of my hours I wasn't eligible to take it. When I left that company I just got a check for the fairly small amount of money that vacation time amounted to. All other retail work I wasn't eligible due to hours (because you needed to be consistently full-time back then and I was mostly in college at that time and didn't work full-time consistently enough to be eligible for benefits).

When I worked for the insurance company I got 19 vacation days plus a floating holiday however vacation days included sick time and vacation rolled into PTO and could be taken in as little as 15min increments. It was however difficult to take time off due to the process they used.

 

[tlprice]

Whenever I read threads like these, it makes me appreciate my school all the more. I am a teacher and my principal doesn't care how many days I take off or when, as long as I have a substitute and lesson plans. If we take a day before or after a holiday, our district can take 1.5 of our days for that day instead of 1 if our principal doesn't approve it. I took 3 of those days this year (2 for vacations and one for a funeral) and was not "charged" the 1.5 days. I almost never take a sick day because I've been exposed to almost every kid germ on earth so I rarely get sick. I also had a lot of teacher friends that retired and ended up with 100 days or more of accumulated leave days and got nothing for them when they retired. I previously worked as a teacher in 2 other states and left 30+ days of leave in each state and got nothing for them. So, I decided that I was going to take at least a week's vacation every year during the school year. I still end up with several accumulated days each year. For the past 6 years (K-5) I have taken my daughter out of school to vacation for a week with me. Her teachers always think it is a great experience. I agree. I wish more of my students' parents would pull them out to take them on educational trips, but most of them cannot afford it as I work in an extremely high poverty school. My daughter's vacations are not excused absences and I did get a nasty letter from the courts this year warning me that I COULD be taken to court. I work in the same district that my daughter attends and I know this is just scare tactics. I have a student that missed 87 days this school year before the courts finally did something. According to my principal, generally when they do go to court, all the judge tells the student is that you need to go to school and tells the parents that they need to make sure they go to school. There's not really a consequence. Therefore, I am not really too worried about it. Once my daughter is in middle school next year, I'm not sure I'll pull her out though. I just know though that these experiences we get to have are not anything we could ever get in school and as a single mother and a teacher, I can't afford to take her on these trips during peak times. Also, it is my understanding (but I may be wrong) that a school doesn't get funding for a student if they are held back. That is why most students are passed on even though they SHOULD be held back. So, I don't think I'd worry about that threat.

 

[TestingH2O]

I agree with all of the above. As a teacher, I need those 8 weeks off to recover from the school year and all it entails. The older I get and the more parenting changes (not for the better), the more I need that extended break. At the end of August, I'm rejuvenated and ready for new challenges ahead, and trust me, there are always many challenges where I teach.

But if you had a 6 on, 3 off schedule you'd be less likely to get so exhausted to begin with. You also wouldn't have to work as hard to close the gap that's created from the long break. Those first weeks are always so hard. I'd love a year-round schedule.

 

[Shanti]

But if you had a 6 on, 3 off schedule you'd be less likely to get so exhausted to begin with. You also wouldn't have to work as hard to close the gap that's created from the long break. Those first weeks are always so hard. I'd love a year-round schedule.

Different strokes. I love the traditional schedule with a long summer break to let myself completely mentally detach from work. I'm in my 18th year of full-time classroom teaching would have burned out long ago without that annual big break, and no 3-week break could compare, even if they occurred periodically throughout the year. I'd probably change careers if they took our summer breaks away. Enough stress is enough.

I'm not convinced that summer vacation is bad for most students. For the most struggling students who also have minimal family support, it likely isn't helpful academically. But for typical students, it hasn't been academically problematic in my experience. And when students have involved families, they often have very enriching experiences during the summer, such as camps, travel, jobs, etc.

My son has special needs, so I spend summers helping him catch up academically, and having fun mom & son time that we both lack energy & time for during the crush of the school year.

 

[HappilyEverAfter80]

This topic is always a subject of debate. When my kids were school aged, I chose not to take them out of the classroom for family vacations. I felt it sent the wrong message to our kids that their education was important, unless we wanted to save money on our vacation. With 4 kids, it was also difficult to coordinate a time when one of them didn't have something going on they didn't want to miss, which became even more difficult as they entered HS.

We chose weekend trips instead. They became so busy with sports, scouts and just hanging out with friends, even weekends became difficult after awhile. They are older now and we travel. Sometimes with them, most times without. The choices are family made were best for us. I personally believe kids should not be removed from school to save money on a vacation. We home schooled for a couple of years and loved the flexibility, but at the end of the day we believed there was value from learning in groups. Our choice doesn't mean it's the only choice or even the best choice, but it's what I suggest.

You make an excellent point. Whether or not you choose to take your kids out of school for a vacation, it’s a choice your family makes and it’s the right one for YOUR family.
Family vacations have brought my family closer and it’s memories we will always have. I mainly take my kid out because I want to go when I want to go. I don’t want to take my vacation at the same time every year.
We are in good company too, because regardless of whether we travel in January to an all inclusive, take a Disney cruise in May or go to Disney World in September it’s always packed full of families with kids of all ages.
School breaks are just even more crowded.
We go to WDW in the summer (and we have mostly done that for a few years now) because we choose to take DS out of school for one vacation only. So if we want to go away another week we will usually hit the summer break. Third maybe after Christmas when school is still out.
We can afford to cruise with Disney in the summer too, I just choose not to... and Christmas week same.
Most of my teacher friends only take one vacation a year or every other even. I prefer to take 2 most years so then I choose to go off season for one trip.
Bottom line is everyone has a choice and does what is right for THEIR family.
Your family doesn’t regret not taking the kids out for vacations while mine doesn’t regret taking them out.
Neither is wrong.
Most of the world does and it’s not a problem.
Now, going back to OP - if we lived in Texas we would probably follow the rules and adapt.
Where I live I don’t feel it sends my kid the wrong message if I take him out of school. But in Texas it mostly likely would.
I’m not breaking any rules where I live.

 

[cyclenut]

Your family doesn’t regret not taking the kids out for vacations while mine doesn’t regret taking them out.
Neither is wrong.
Most of the world does and it’s not a problem.

Yes. It is a personal choice. Most of us will make the choice that is right for us and our kids. Unfortunately there are truancy laws for those who make poor choices, but taking a few days off for a vacation isn't a violation of those laws in my opinion.

I do want to challenge one thing though. I don't think it is factual to say that most of the world does it and it's not a problem. if that were true, you would find vacations crowded with kids year round. The number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations in't that large. If it were, there would not be these wonderful travel deals during school days. Cruise lines, resorts and airlines would not have "off peak" times.

Food for thought.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have a student that missed 87 days this school year before the courts finally did something. According to my principal, generally when they do go to court, all the judge tells the student is that you need to go to school and tells the parents that they need to make sure they go to school. There's not really a consequence. Therefore, I am not really too worried about it.

Yikes that's way way way too many days.

In my state the law is the following in regards to truancy and that most def. would be truancy--well at least if the child was at least 7:


There's no way I would chance getting a DA involved. You could have a lenient judge or you may not that would be taking it entirely up to chance.

FWIW a "Child in Need of Care" is considered the following " CINC cases are divided into Truancy concerns, or not attending school as required by State Law, and cases involving abuse, neglect or runaway type behaviors."

 

[HappilyEverAfter80]

Yes. It is a personal choice. Most of us will make the choice that is right for us and our kids. Unfortunately there are truancy laws for those who make poor choices, but taking a few days off for a vacation isn't a violation of those laws in my opinion.

I do want to challenge one thing though. I don't think it is factual to say that most of the world does it and it's not a problem. if that were true, you would find vacations crowded with kids year round. The number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations in't that large. If it were, there would not be these wonderful travel deals during school days. Cruise lines, resorts and airlines would not have "off peak" times.

Food for thought.

It’s true but it’s still large enough - it’s more more crowded when school is out yes, but there are still a lot of kids at the other times. What I meant is that most of the world (somewhere) does take kids out for vacations. Not to say that it’s more than during school breaks. Just that in almost every country parents do it. Of course they are still the minority, but it’s done everywhere.

 

[Summer2018]

But if you had a 6 on, 3 off schedule you'd be less likely to get so exhausted to begin with. You also wouldn't have to work as hard to close the gap that's created from the long break. Those first weeks are always so hard. I'd love a year-round schedule.

True.

In my case, I teach Pre-K, 4 year olds, the majority have not been to a Pre-K 3 program. I am their first teacher. The first month of school is torture, however, by Halloween, we are in a routine, and any extra days off besides the weekend is too much time away from me. Vacations throw them off. They need structure, and they don’t get that at home. If they had three weeks off at a time, it would be a nightmare getting them back into our routine.

If my state were to adopt that kind of schedule, I would seriously need to make a major change.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I am always surprised at how little the kids cover in public school-- at all levels. I will never forget the day my precocious kindergartner came home after his first week of school and told me he hated school because the teacher had not taught him anything the whole first week. It was hard to argue with him. That's when I began explaining to him the history and purpose of public schooling and bureaucracies and how they work. I do not fault the teachers-- They are just as dehumanized and hemmed in by "rules and regulations" as the kids. I will also never forget when my high schooler watched movies in classes for an entire week because they were "finished with testing." There is no way a week of missed school here and there will harm kids in the long run. It is really unbelieveable the way some states treat students like inmates and dollar signs and I wonder how we got to this point as a society. Well, actually I know how, but I wonder when people will say enough is enough. Public schools need to be more flexible period and treat students more like individuals instead of just working at the lowest common denominator all the time.

 

[TestingH2O]

I can only speak from my perspective and experience here, but missing a week in one of my lab classes or AP's is not a trivial thing. There is little daily homework in my classes (mainly just self paced reading in AP) and lots and lots of bench time in class. In a typical week, we meet for about 3 hours and 45 minutes. Maybe 20 minutes of that is lecture. The rest is lab work or other types of hands on activities. I can't send home a packet to replace that experience and it's not realistic to ask me to spend 3+ hours with every student who chooses to miss a week.

The educational trend in science is moving more and more towards minimal homework and increased hands on learning in the classroom. This is particularly true at the high school level. I've always felt that younger kids should be less tied to a traditional school schedule as they are particularly impacted by experiences above traditional teaching. However, I worry when families don't adjust their habits to the changing expectations of progressive grades. Honestly, all of these attendance policies need some flexibility in them to evaluate every student's individual progress and course load.

 

[tarheelz]

Come on, people. This is all about priorities. Given the importance of Disney cruises, it's compulsory upon us parents to move to states where attendance policies are ... flexible.

Note: Last month, our DD missed 6.5 days of 5th Grade to go on our first DCL cruise followed by a week at WDW. Her school asked us to fill out a form identifying "educational opportunities" along the trip. Result: All days were excused. (North Carolina!)