In my 30 years as principal, and in our veteran teachers' many years teaching, we have all noticed the same trend - more students are missing school multiple-days-at-a-time due to their family pulling them out of class to take a family trip. Now, before you think our concern is simply "jealousy" - after all, the only time my mom pulled me out of school for a trip was to take a trip to the dentist - please realize that our concern, and the reason for our recent actions regarding this "new-normal" for many families, is primarily out of concern for your children, with a secondary reason being concern for the teachers.

We all agree that it is a good thing for families to enjoy time together on a trip. There is nothing more important then parent-&-child unity and love. That is a big reason why a typical school calendar devotes much time to days-off and vacations. There are many three- or four-day weekends built into the St. Louise School calendar, along with two weeks at Christmas-time and one week at Easter-time. And of course, there are 11 weeks of no-school during the summer. It is during these times that school families should plan those big trips of more than a few days.

When your child misses a number of school days in a row due to a "choice" (as opposed to when he/she is "forced" to miss school, such as when home sick with the flu), there are so many reasons why this is detrimental:

1. Missing school for gratuitous reasons gives your kid the message that school is lower on the scale of importance, when in actuality, "being a student" is your child's #1 job at this time in his/her life.
2. When a student misses school, he/she misses more than the homework assignments the teachers gave that day. Also squandered are the in-class lectures, the teacher demonstrations, the partner-work on assignments, the small group-work on projects, and the building of artistic skills, athletic skills, and social skills which took place in art class, music class, p.e. class, and recess.
3. Students absent from school for more than a couple of days in a row will return being way behind in understanding the new math chapter, the new novel in reading class, and the new science project that were taught when they were gone. This creates the feeling for most students of feeling like they are running on a hamster wheel, trying to catch up in the days after the return, but realizing they aren't making progress because as hard as they try, the rest of the class is still ahead of them.
4. Teachers have a heavy work load of preparing lessons, correcting papers, scoring tests, creating projects, etc. It's both demanding on the teacher and unjust to the classmates for the teacher to have to break from his/her work time or to have to ignore the rest of the class, so to work one-on-one to prepare a list of absent work for the soon-to-be traveling student to attempt to work on during vacation and/or help the absent student catch up with private lessons, initiating make-up tests, etc.
5. Studies have shown that missing more school than just for sick days is harmful to students' future success. One study of kindergarten students who missed a lot of school days showed that there was a higher chance those students would perform lower academically in 1st grade. Another student of 6th grade students who missed more school than normal showed that these kids were more likely to not graduate from high school with their peers six years later.

I could go on, but you get my point. Of course, please know that the teachers and I understand when a family goes on a trip during school days due to a family emergency, such as visiting an ill grandparent who lives out of state. We would never bat an eye over this type of absence. But when we do bat an eye - actually we go into massive blinking attacks - is when a student is going to miss a week or so of school, so the family can go to Disneyland, Hawaii, Cancun, etc. during school days, when there are 14 full weeks already scheduled throughout the year as no-school days.

Because of our growing concern for more and more students missing school for reasons other than illness or family emergencies, and because this problem affects both the teachers' workloads and those students' academics and anxiety of being able to catch up, we have strengthened our school's absence policy.

Please go to page 4 of the POLICY HANDBOOK on our school website where you'll find the entire Absence Policy spelled out. Our website also has a link to the new Planned Absence Form that you and your child must present to the teacher at least 5 days prior to certain planned absences. Following is a snippet from our policy. Please go to the website to read the entire policy and procedures regarding planned absences...

Planned Absence of Three or More Consecutive Days

   "If a student will be absent three or more school days in a row, at least five school days' notification to the school about the absence is required through the use of a Planned Absence Request Form. Note: if the trip is due to a family emergency, out-of-town funeral, etc., exceptions to the following procedures can be made.
   The student is to have each teacher, whose class he/she will miss, sign the back of this form and list the assignment that will need to be completed - if known ahead of time. (For grade K-3 students, simply having the homeroom teacher's signature will suffice. For grade 4-8 students, all teachers' signatures, including specialist teachers, are required.) The teacher is not required to list any assignments ahead of time. The teacher may also add comments as to any concerns with what curriculum the student will miss, if the student's grades are already at risk, etc.
   Once the student receives signatures and any assignments/comments from all teachers, the student is to give this form to the principal no later than 5 days before the absence begins. The principal will approve or object to the request based upon the teacher's comments, the length of the absence, and the family's attendance history, and will inform the parents on the approval or objection.  Although parents make the final decision on taking an absence from school, there are consequences.
* If the requested absence is objected to by the principal, the teacher will not accept any missed work for credit. However, it's to the student's educational benefit to still keep in step with the missed learning and catch up to where the classmates are in the curriculum upon his/her return.
* If the absence is approved, it is the student's responsibility to make up all school work he/she missed during the absence, and much will be graded for credit. In most cases, assignments assigned by the teacher before the planned absence will be due the day the student returns to school. If not turned in the day the student returns, the assignment will be graded as late work. In the case of an assignment not being able to be assigned by the teacher prior to the planned absence, each teacher will decide on the appropriate time allowed for the student to make up work. The day the student returns to school, the student and parent should attempt to meet with all the teachers to coordinate make-up work.
* The student should expect that missed tests which need to be made-up will most likely be taken during before-school or after-school hours, so parents must be prepared to adjust family schedules.
* The student and parents must realize that quizzes and most in-class projects completed when the student was absent cannot be replicated upon the student's return, and the student will receive zero credit for those missed, graded events. Thus, the student could likely earn a reduced grade on the report card for the trimester when the family trip was taken..."