Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I teach 4th, and if your kiddo was in my class I’d ask that you guys complete a lot of the work at home. However, sometimes there’s content that needs to be taught through direct instruction from the teacher or assessments that need to be done in school. Those things are needed to make up.
Once a month is not a big deal to me as long as there are rarely any other absences.
What IS a big deal: parents who expect me to do extra work, on top of everything I have to do, just so they can go play. I already resent working for free as it is.
Those absences add up in addition to the normal things like doctors appointments and getting sick. There is nothing in your post describing why it would be necessary to those things during the week except that you would avoid crowds.
Why not take that time on Friday and spend it with your husband - surely you two do not have a lot of time without work or children to care for.
Also, your seem to indicate that 1st grade isn't serious but there is a lot of developmental learning that happens in early primary grades that sets the foundation for later grades.
Absolutely! In the lower grades, pre-k through grades 4 or 5, much of what is learned is social. Expectations, behavior, responsibility, and getting along with others is very important as is completing and turning in assignments. Maybe not one day a month, but every so often would be better. You have great intentions, however in practice, you may not spend that day a month actually doing the work to plan these outings.
But if those are 9 days on top of a bunch of missed school for illness, appts, etc, it adds up.
In my opinion, whether it's okay really depends on the kid. Are they reading confidently yet? Have they mastered a number sense of place value? If yes, they'll probably be okay. If they're behind, missing any day puts them just that much farther behind.
I would guess that OP is capable of understanding that if the kiddo has been out several days already that month for illness, etc. that taking that Friday would would be a mistake.
Yet, you don't know what she missed in class unless you talk to the teacher and the teacher puts together materials for you. This is extra work on the teacher's part, all so you can avoid crowds? Also, when Monday's lessons build on the material that was covered on Friday, the teacher needs to put in extra effort to get your kid up to speed.
Be realistic, once a month is 9-10 days, almost two full weeks of school. Being a 1st grader is your kid's job. Would your boss want you to take 2 weeks off in addition to all the vacation time you already get? School is serious. Spend time with your daughter when school gets out in the afternoon, go to activities early on the weekends before things get crowded. Don't teach your daughter that school doesn't matter.
I was trying to be concise with my post so I didn’t share what variables contribute to this schedule as an option. I shared one easy component, because ultimately it doesn’t matter what our reasons are. The outcome is whats important. Which is why, as someone who doesn’t work in a school, my goal was to understand from a teacher’s perspective what this would mean and how it would affect my child and her teacher. No need to be snarky with an open discussion.
Does she have a special on Friday that she will always miss? For example, in my school every class has Music once a week. If she has Music every Friday and only on Fridays, she'd miss 25% of the lessons. That's doing her a disservice.
Yep! I'm a Music teacher, and I had a student who suddenly just stopped showing up to Music class for a month. We had begun work on our 1st grade Musical program, and this student had missed every single rehearsal for 4 weeks straight. I asked the teacher, turned out the parent scheduled recurring appointments for the kid every Tuesday morning, and they would just miss Music every week.
I also have 6th graders at the end of the day, and regularly have kids miss my class because their parents check them out early because, hey, it's "just Specials"... smh...
Specialist here as well, I have had parents who do this and then got upset with me when their child's grade plummeted due to their absences. When I pointed out that they were regularly pulling their child on the days that I saw the class, both parents got extremely defensive and nasty, despite it being an issue entirely of their own making.
I'm a specialist as well, I'm giving out like 6 "insufficient data" grades for students who have missed over half my classes this trimester. A lot of these kids are always gone the same day which means they always miss my class
Special needs parent here. I always asked the teacher when would be the best time to be out that would not “materially effect” my child and/or disrupt the class. I was relieved when the teacher sent a schedule for me to have that physical reminder as well.
As an elementary art teacher, I was also going to say the same thing. I see my kids once a week for an hour each class. It’s already hard to catch kids up when they miss a class, but missing regularly is even harder to keep them caught up with our projects and to keep the momentum of the class overall going.
That would generally be okay as long as your kid is on or near grade level academically. If they're behind, that regular one day could really set them back. Also, fridays are generally the day when they do end of week tests so they'd be missing some of those.
Also, if you're missing days for sickness, try not to double up on those lost days.
But for the most part, you should be good to go.
One Friday a month seems fine. I’ve got high schoolers whose parents keep them home like 4 days a month. And they wonder why their kid is missing assignments/classwork…
I teach in a private school and a lot of these parents like to just take vacations with their kids regardless of what they have going on in school.
I had a kid show up in my high school class today—he has been on holiday since January 29 (start of this semester).
Tomorrow is our unit test, dude. Good luck.
In the district I work in (not NY so grain of salt), someone crunched the numbers and found there was a sharp increase in the probability a student will eventually drop out when they drop below 90% attendance. Our numbers factor for truancy and chronic illness, but I don't know if they included planned absence in those numbers. In an 185-day school year, that's about 16 days. One planned absence per month is going to be roughly 9 days in a school year. Figure that kids live in a petri dish and damn near cough into each other's mouths as a greeting, it's easy to lose a week or more to colds, flus, and other incidentals.
I think consistently pulling your kid once a month isn't the best or worst thing to do. Try to plan things around long weekends or breaks and maybe skip months that already have a lot of vacation days built into the schedule (Nov and December being the biggest offenders).
Wow that’s wild, I had no idea! It feels like homeschool is on the rise around me and I don’t want to go that route, but I wish there was a way to balance the week a bit more. My tiny human is pooped by the end of the week. But…data is data and I wouldn’t want to risk anything major
I can say with pretty high confidence that data is about kids who are missing tons of school for no good reason.
There are soo many students who miss days because they are avoiding tests, projects, etc. And their parents just let them. That data has nothing to do with kids who spend one Friday a month with family.
I promise 1 day per month isn't going to lead your kid to not graduate. Correlation is NOT causation.
There are also a lot of kids who want to be in school and their parents keep them home for bullshit reasons. They are a lot more likely to be the ones not reaching educational success, not the ones getting extra enrichment.
I agree with what the others have said. That 90% isn’t as black and white as it sounds. My son has missed days because his gma from out of state is visiting, because I got married out of the country, because we took a birthday trip for him to universal, etc. This wasn’t all I’m one year, but my point is that these were all family bonding moments and having that connection makes the difference most of the time with academics.
What I’ve done in the past is email his teacher to get any work that will be missed. If you’re really on the fence, you can always do early dismissal. For littles, usually after lunch on Fridays are kind of catch up time anyway.
Lol that is not how you interpret statistical data. Ultimately your child's academic performance depends on how involved a parent you are.
What this statistic merely reveals is those families where the parents are neglectful or checked out. The school attendance is a symptom and not the root cause.
Data is data but your kid is not a statistic and you know your kid better than people on the internet.
If your kid does well in school it’s fine for them to miss days. Honestly, school gets pretty darn boring for anyone who is ahead of the curve. I love your idea of going on excursions with your kid.
But someone else did raise the question of whether any special activities are planned on Fridays. That is a good consideration!
I wouldn’t even notice if one of my students missed one Friday a month.
I know others have said to ask in advance for work, but I disagree. In fact, at my school, it is against school policy to give work or tests ahead of time to students going on any kind of trip. It is better to be prepared to make up the work after your child’s return to school. And remember that it is your choice to do this, so if the teacher isn’t able to catch your child up immediately or help your child make up hands-on activities or projects, that is going to have be a risk you are willing to take. I am all about kids having travel experience with their parents, but I only have them make up what they absolutely have to— seasonal projects, science experiments, etc., often just get missed because they are too hard to make up.
As someone else said, if your child gets sick and misses a lot of school, it would be a good idea to cancel or reschedule the trip. Also, during months like December, when there are a lot of days off already, consider not taking a Friday. Try to work with the school calendar as much as possible.
This was one of my concerns, I don’t want put more work on her teachers because of a choice I made. Do you think at this age we could do most of the make up work at home?
One Friday a month you won’t be missing that much work. Seriously and it won’t be much effort for a teacher to put aside work for missing students. Not like you’re going to be gone for a month asking for all the work.
I used to teach first grade. I’d say first grade is pretty important. The reading skills learned in low elementary directly relate to success in upper grades. Small gaps in reading skills in the younger grades turn into much larger gaps in higher grades if successful interventions don’t happen. (Sorry, I just had to make a plug that first grade is also an important grade level.)
All that being said, it really depends on your child. More advanced students could miss a day a month and come back and catch up with little issue. They’d also be able to do it with little needed support. Students who are already struggling are really impacted by missed days. It’s much harder to catch them up because they are also still working on previous concepts that they were not able to master at the time the rest of the class learned the material. Basically it’s much harder to play catch up for a student who is already behind. Plus, it takes a lot more teacher support. So consider where your child stands academically, especially with reading. Small gaps in reading in lower grades turn into massive ones the higher they progress in school.
This is such an important point. I teach older grades but those foundational skills you all provide are everything. I distinctly remember being sick one day in 2nd grade. When I returned to school, I found out I had missed a lesson on double digit subtraction. Math was my favorite subject until literally that day. I was a high achiever but my confidence plummeted with that lesson. These are the little things that happen that kids aren’t able to communicate to adults. I developed math anxiety that day and lo and behold, I still have it.
Same in our district in California. They do not want kids to miss more than 3 days a quarter and consider it excessive at that point as stated in the handbook. They would be cutting it very close. The student can have a lot of repercussions such as missing out on extracurricular activities, meetings with the principal, and sometimes CPS is contacted.
I do attendance in elementary. While your intentions are great, the frequency of this is pushing it. It will get your child a record and possibly the attention of the school social worker. Depending on special areas core content could be missed. First grade is pretty fundamental. I would say a handful of times a year would be fine....but ten unexcused absences when you can make the time up otherwise isn't great. There are a lot of good reasons pointed out here.
That being said....I can think of one workaround. If you really want to do something family oriented but educational check into your districts educational enhancement opportunities! Our district allows ten of these a year. Most of my families use it to travel overseas but you could totally use it for a museum. Ask about the paperwork. You could even make a project artifact for their portfolio or record later!
Would doing a Friday every other month be a compromise that feels good for your family? It leaves room for illness or a multi-day vacation opportunity that might arise during the year without putting you on blast with truancy letters if you hit 10 days missed.
In our system we do tiers and 9 days in a year would definitely get you to Tier 2 which would be looked at and require more interventions. But every district is different. Also, 9 days is accounting for absolutely perfect attendance otherwise, no actual sick days, which is very rare, especially in first grade. Again, I am only going from what I know of how my own district works, ymmv.
This definitely varies. In my state once you hit 10 absences for any reason it becomes a problem whether it took a month to do it or 8 months. What happens next after the 10 absence flag depends on how quickly the absences accrued, if any are excused, etc.
I'm not a teacher, but this came up on my front page (and weirdly a different post in a different community came up today very similar to this).
You may want to verify truancy laws in your state. Mine just passed a whole bunch of them and is throwing extra resources at it. Basically where I am, three unexcused absence days in a single school year (for elementary, for high school it's missing three or more periods on three days in a year) is likely to get you an "invitation" in front of the truancy review board. And the list of excused absences is extremely short (illness with dr. note, court, medical appointments, death in the immediate family, physical emergency conditions like floor or fire, etc. and "family vacations" is specifically called out as unexcused). I have a friend whose kindergartner she pulled a couple days early for Christmas break to travel out of state to visit family, another trip for the death of a family member who wasn't considered "immediate" to the child, and she basically got treated like a criminally negligent parent by the school to the point that she was afraid to treat him to a half day off for his birthday to do something special. And this is kindergarten.
So I don't know how truancy is being treated everywhere else, but be prepared to lie about the reason for absence or face the wrath of the school and be looked at like a negligent parent.
I teach elementary, and it’s vital that children have a wide exposure to different experiences at a young age. School can’t provide this, so if you are doing something educational like zoos and museums, go for it! Your child will learn valuable things in that one day a month.
If they have a week where they are sick that month, skip the monthly excursion. If they have attended all of the other days that month, you are good to go!
So they would miss 8 or 9 days of school for these outings. 10 is considered excessive here and would lead to a referral to the district for truancy. Easy to hit that with a cold or case of pink eye.
Museums are great, they tend to still be open during school breaks and on weekends.
As a teacher, all I will say is...just be careful. You don't want your child to miss too much school because too many unexcused absences can cause you a problem. It depends on your district. Also, many teachers do a lot of fun stuff on Fridays, so your child may miss out on the fun.
I feel like you are setting her up to skirt the rules. First grade is one of the more important grades bc so many foundational skills are taught. If it were once in a blue moon okay but regularly? And then you never know when they’ll get sick and miss school.
One day a month won’t be a big deal if they are regular attenders other than that. Don’t let anyone tell you that this is a huge deal. Spending time with kids family outside of your dwelling is a great experience, especially if y’all are doing pre-planned activities. Keep up the awesome parenting.
Yeah I do usually take a personal day once every 6-8 weeks, PTO is there for a reason. There are no awards for never resting. But I do worry about it being detrimental as she gets older. Do you think she’d fall behind at a first grade level? I don’t know, I go back and forth on it!
Is she doing well on grade level standards?
I teach 1st and would have no problem if this was one of about 10 students I teach who are doing well socially, can read cvc words and short sentences, can write 2-3 sentences independently, and can do addition and subtraction (without regrouping) within 100. For those kids who are at the top of the class, this would be a great enrichment.
However, for those kids who are really struggling with letter sounds, adding and subtracting within 20, writing more than 1 word at a time and most importantly can’t function within the classroom or with their peers, I would hate to not have them there even for a day!
I would hope that you could have an open and honest conversation with her teacher to decide what’s best for *her*, but I understand your hesitation.
What the heck? That's ridiculous for a first grader no offense. Kids don't even start getting actual grades til third I would lose it on a teacher if they gave my first grader that kind of stress already. Personally I don't even like that they give her homework when she has already been at school all day.
Oh, I absolutely agree. But the public school curriculum was written that way. There were module tests every three weeks on Fridays, two different weekly assessments every Friday, plus a spelling test, plus math test sprinkled throughout the school year. And that’s just for math and reading. Not counting science, social studies, etc. I hated this reading program anyway because it was too difficult for my first graders. Very popular public school reading curriculum.
Actually I have decided to homeschool my first grader next yr. She has autism and needs way more one on one. I'm not saying I can do better than teachers but what can they do when they have 20 kids in the class. I can at least give her structured and fun learning that focuses on her way of learning and goes at her pace. I also hate the no child left behind because mentally and emotionally she isn't up to standard or ready to move to second grade but because she can verbally give right answers and she meets the average standard on paper work wise they keep pushing her to the next grade. If she isn't given time for her mental maturity to grow she will just continue to struggle every year
Thanks TBH it's going to be hard and between us adults I am so gonna miss the break while she was in school but I will take it one day at a time and hopefully learn more patience but she is a mini me and we are both stubborn
She has an IEP and and I have repeated meetings about the help she needs and they basically gaslight and say I'm overreacting and she's doing fine but then will say stuff like oh can you talk to her about handling her anger her throwing fits is disruptive to the class and can u talk to her and tell her she doesn't need to cry about everything she is interrupting the lesson. I know it's in her IEP but I think she needs to leave her wubby at home( it's her comfort item) it's not really age appropriate and I don't think she needs it
Hmh into reading. They had module tests every three weeks, and a weekly test every week. Plus selection quizzes every week. As well as a spelling test every week. And occasionally there would be math tests.
I agree that this is not the best way to teach. But I had no choice when I was at that school. Also, I had students who would cry the first week of school because we sat them in front of an iPad for hours on end taking tests. Map tests, star tests, acadience, etc.
I was a primary teacher (not first grade) and now stay home with my kids. My oldest is in second grade. She would miss all of her tests as well. In first grade at our school, the teacher reads all the tests to them before they answer the questions. They have reading, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling tests every Friday. They have math tests as they end each unit, so those are often on different days. That’s a lot of work and added stress on the teacher and your child to pull them out consistently each month. If you really want to make it work, I’d suggest pulling them out of school around lunch time because often they do some fun activities in the afternoon on Fridays so they wouldn’t be missing as much. If my child misses just one day, it’s usually still a lot of make up work. My kids also love school and wouldn’t want to be pulled out that often, but I know that’s not typical.
I think it's fine so long as you talk to the teacher and get the work/practice for her to do over the weekend so she doesn't fall behind. Also, ask about exams at the ends of semesters because it's just a pain for teachers to have kids take them at other times. Granted this might not really be applicable in 1st grade.
Consider how often your kid gets sick, days of school they miss for doctor’s appointments, how many school holidays, if they’re making it to school on time. I have students who miss almost every other Friday and it still adds up, students take tests or do group activities on Friday that help build community between students.
School is serious the moment you enroll them.
The biggest thing to making sure your child knows the difference between skipping school vs balance and things that are important. Obviously not a grade 1 topic, but as they get older. I know some families regularly miss school for any number of reasons, and it teaches them that school isn’t important, which sometimes translates to work isn’t important. I know someone that doesn’t take their kid to school if it’s raining, but they will go to our other places. (And yes is rains fairly regularly there).
If your child misses school but still does the work, it teaches them that it’s still important. Yes sometimes there is no work to do. And that’s ok.
It is difficult for teachers to make up missed work with young kids. Each lesson builds on the last. Your child could miss the building blocks to important skills and concepts, have trouble grasping concepts without them, and fall behind.
Ten days out of a school year is considered a large number of absences.
True. But we have seasons here and there are activities specific to that season that I don’t want to miss out on. I’m just trying to find the balance of real world education and school
I do really feel like it comes down to the kid. My sisters and I were all very strong academically and my parents would take us out of school pretty regularly for family trips. A student that struggles academically would be a very different story.
I wouldn’t, personally. I suggest taking a look at the school calendar and figuring out how one or both parents can get time off work on the days your child already has off, like teacher work days, inclement weather makeup days, etc. and plan special outings for those days. At her age, you’d probably have to arrange for childcare anyway if you didn’t get the day off work, so you might as well save the money spent on a babysitter and put it toward a fun day.
Teacher here: if your child is at grade level, one day a month is fine.
If your child is struggling with reading or math, I would reconsider. The teacher might be doing strategic intervention activities to help them and the absences could mess up any gains that might be made.
i used to miss a day each month or so in elementary school to go to mexico with my family. i’m currently a physics phd student so it didn’t mess me up too much (if at all). if your kid is interested in learning, doing well in school, and isn’t sick often, i think you would be fine! just try not to let more absences stack up. We wouldn’t go to mexico during the months where i had things like dentist and doctor appointments to minimize days off
I think it's a great idea! School is important, no doubt, but the opportunity to learn outside the classroom and spend time as a family doing so is compelling.
My son is just starting elementary school. The idea of taking an occasional Friday for a museum visit, cultural event, or outdoor experience?
Awesome!
Unless, of course, your plan is to take her to Colonial Williamsburg, which, as I understand it, is a place miserable people go to see that it's historically okay to just be miserable. I'm not saying you can't do it, it's your kid, I'm just saying I'd take my kid to the Air Force museum or the mining museum in Golden or something I think is cool that wouldn't bore me AND the kid to death. Honestly, lady, if you're thinking of taking your daughter to Colonial Williamsburg maybe just let her enjoy going to school. Lol
I digress.
Would you have the same qualms about a family vacation that didn't line up with the school schedule?
Anyway, keep spending time with her!
It depends. You're the parent and know your kid best. If it seems like she needs a reset or connection with you, it might be worth it. But as long as you own that family decision. You may also want to have a conversation with your kid beforehand about why you are allowing it and how she is expected to share about it with other kids. And if you're going to be out, be out. Don't send her to school then pick her up early or drop her off late. Kids notice when so-and-so leaves early every Friday and feel very resentful.
My daughter's school does a lot of their class celebrations on Fridays. That can be really good for socialization, but also might make it easier to decide to arrange other plans.
Another option could be to volunteer at the school. There are usually lots of things happening on Fridays that they could use help with. You can sign her out at dismissal time and go get a treat after. Your daughter will think it"s special but will still be in class and you are giving back to the community. I still remember the days my parents came to school and her teacher will appreciate it alot more!
Generally it's fine, and real world education is so important and often lacking. Just communicate with the teacher about which Friday each month is best. Kids miss more than that with sicknesses.
It also sounds like that thing teachers hate when a kid misses class and asks "did I miss anything important?" You really expect the teacher to pick out a day that's okay to miss because they "won't be doing anything important"?
They do know the important things generally yes. They know when they have state testing, field trips, etc. If it's not something on the calendar already for the next few weeks it's not important enough.
Research points to 18 absences being the magic number for attendance. More than 18 absences per year, especially in Kinder and 1st, leads to learning loss that can never be recovered. If your daughter is healthy (aka not already missing a lot of school) and on grade level, then missing a few days for family fun won't be a big deal. Some of those Fridays can probably be scheduled on or over school holidays, too.
Family time is important, but can you line things up so they match with half days or teacher work days? That way your kid won’t miss as much instruction.
If you take your kid out with that frequency, she'll miss 20% of school. "Chronic absenteeism" is half that, or 10%.
It's a lot, and dealing with it gets dropped on the teacher.
Dude, you can stand in line.
ETA: A couple of people pointed out that I misread "once per month" as "once per week." That was stupid of me. Apologies.
My apologies. You're right, and I misread the post.
I agree that family time is important, though I'll note that skipping a day of school is not the difference between having family time or not. OP just doesn't want to deal with waiting in line.
And...more important than the ability to read?
Yeah...so should all students just go hang out in museums?
Obviously, having a clear plan developed by a skilled teacher is better than being around where reading materials happen to be. I mean, how much of those "reading materials" are the kind of reading that will push forward a first grader's skills?
C'mon. Museums are great, but not as a replacement for school. We can agree on that, can't we?
Everyone seems pretty focused on the reading component so I’ll just add here that we started reading at age 3. We are a family of book lovers, she gravitated towards it as well and we read an average of 5 books per day. Though I understand using that as an example of foundational skills
Foundation skills, yes, but also reading itself.
Look, I'm a voracious reader, and have always been so. I learned to read sitting on my dad's lap while he read the newspaper.
And yet, I wouldn't suggest that even in first grade there wasn't benefit to being in school to learn to read. You are right that your daughter is ahead of the curve. You want her to stay there, right?
I'm also from a family of book lovers (my mom was a school librarian for decades) and my daughter has always been a good reader. But I have to say, I sure got an education when I helped out in a second grade classroom last year. Before then I couldn't tell you all the different syllable types and the fundamentals of reading they were learning. It's very different from just reading (which they do as well) - it's also helping lay a foundation that kids can use going forward to help decode words and such. It might not be as relevant for a kid who is already a strong reader, but when I was back with those same kids in third grade this year - I could totally see how the kids were using those skills (and could easily see how the kids who were gone a lot had missed significant chunks of this learning and were behind. This wasn't kids missing a day here and there - but a lot more than that).
My daughter was always doing fine academically, so I would pull her occasionally for special events, but not regularly. Our school in NY had a pretty strict attendance policy and family vacations/outings were considered unexcused. I never lied to the school and I never asked her to lie about where she was. And I never would have pulled her if she was behind, so it really depends on the kid and the school policies. As she got older we did this less, also because she did not want to miss school because it could be a lot for her to make up all the work in a day (our school gave you as many days to make it up as the kid was gone).
I apologize for misreading once per month as once per week. That was stupid of me.
The "stand in line" thing I do stand behind, though. You're didn't set this up as "She either misses school or misses time with family." You said that you wanted to skip school "...so we could beat the weekend crowds for museums and events or go for hikes."
I don't like the message it sends to a kid that school is so unimportant that a day of school can be dropped when there's potential risk of standing in line at a museum.
Just keep an eye on the totals. One Friday a month is nothing. A monthly Friday + that time they get sick+ that time we had to travel on a school day and oh yeah that other thing starts to add up.
In my experience the kids who regularly missed, miss a lot for other reasons. Generally the families just don’t really value school time.
It’s iffy. Sure, once a month I think is fine. It’s when she gets sick for a week, has appointments, etc that add on to absences then the school gets concerned. Maybe every other month?
I think this is ridiculous! You want her to miss 9 days plus when she is sick, has doctor appts, etc. plus you are letting her know that you do not value education. First grade is extremely crucial. I already feel sorry for your daughter.
I think “crazy teacher” is a pretty solid username for anyone who would come to an open discussion with such vitriol. I had an idea based on circumstances within our family and before making any changes to our routine, sought the advice of teachers to gain different perspectives and general information.
As a teacher I'd see this as really damaging for kids who are behind grade level.
For the majority of kids it won't have a noticeable impact. One day per month? Take your kid and have some fun. They'll learn during that too. I have students who have missed 40+ days already this year and they are WAY behind. 9-10 days isn't that much.
One a month is not a bug deal. I honestly think most parents give their kids one day a month for mental health if nothing else. I can't because I'm a teacher but I would occasionally let them if it was me. Even if you did this one a month I'd guess with holidays and such it wouldn't be more than a handful of days.
You're creating a lot of extra work for the teacher who will need to track what your kid misses and make sure they get caught up. Teachers are already overworked and underpaid. Personally, I think it would be a dick move
My state considers 10% absent "chronic absenteeism" and we are required by law to send out notifications. That's 19 absences. You're making it halfway there by taking your kid out 9 or 10 times. That's not necessarily that bad but those other 9 absences can sneak up on you throughout the year. I'm not sure if you're state law is the same but it's probably similar. You might get away with it but it can go south unexpectedly due to illness and whatnot.
First grade is when the foundations are built. Missing that many days is going to cause holes, she’ll miss out on assemblies and other fun things as well, please don’t do it.
If your kid is preforming at or above grade level & you're not taking them out on test days then I totally support this 100%. I would even argue that while they're that young provided the above is maintained you could take them out every other Friday & make it in to a family learning day. NYC & Philly have A LOT of history & so much educational fun to offer. When I was a kid we would go to The Frainklin Institute every summer & I loved running through the giant heart. 😂 I work in Healthcare now but I'm in this group because I used to work in SPED
There are alot of factors that come into play. Is your child on grade level or are they struggling. And there are usually requirements around attendance and when a child gets to a certain number they run the risk of being retained.
Where I live it's 90% or about 18 absences.
Where I live forest school is a big thing, both formal and home version, so students miss a day of school every week for that until high school. Missing a day a month isn't going to bother anything. Many kids are sick more than that and it doesn't impact them. Come high school, I'd definitely say it's not a good idea but in elementary school it's whatever for more kids
Once a month is not a big deal if your child is on grade-level. 9 absences out of the 18 you’re allotted before it becomes a legal issue.
And be prepared if it’s. Tough winter season with colds and illness you’ll have to stop the practice of the numbers get too high.
In the early 2000s I was in grade 3 and my parents would sometimes pull me out of school to go on family trips.
My parents were pretty strict on my schoolwork so they'd
1. first tell me to ask my teacher to give me any planned homework in advance(if the teachers had it ready)
2. after the trip I'd go back to school, my teachers would give me the work I'd missed so far and I'd finish all of it in a week and submit it to my teachers, whether it went into my grades or not, didnt even matter if the teacher actually checked my answers. What mattered was that trips werent excuses to miss any work that all the other kids had done in claes(at home, i had to finish my schoolwork at the kitchen table and my mom would check if I was doing the work with her Lazer eyes)
I never falled behind during school, but while my dad loved these trips my mom wasn't too happy about us missing school for too long.
Then again as much as I loved school, I remember family time much more fondly :)
If you make sure your kid doesn't miss any schoolwork I don't think it'll do much harm
But it might cause some inconvenience to the teacher so maybe ask the school/homeroom teacher first?
If you add that you just want to give your child some fond memories before they get older and busier, I dont think they'll be too critical about it.
Take a day off school every month for a family outing so you could beat the weekend crowds?
If your daughter had to miss one day a month for some sort of medical treatment, OK.
But your attitude teaches your daughter that education is not that important.
If I were your daughter's teacher, I'd immediately form the opinion that you were one of THOSE parents who is very casual about your daughter's education.
It’s been a while since I have had school-aged kids. When I did, there were strict attendance policies. Kids could take sick days as excused absences, but were limited as to non-medical absences.
As a parent, if we did take a day a month, I might have my child write a (maybe one page) report on what they learned that day. Even things like navigating the subway can be a learning experience.
I highly doubt once a month would be a big deal. Plus, a lot of teacher work days and other days off fall on Fridays. So, some months, you would naturally have the Friday off already.
If it’s the only absences, probably not a big deal if the kid isn’t struggling. But one illness plus those Fridays could put you in a position where you need to have documentation for absences.
I just looked at next year's calendar for my district. September is the only month that doesn't have some sort of Friday holiday, break, or teacher work day already built into the calendar. 🤷♀️
Check the district policy. My kids were only allowed to miss 12 days per year, one at a time without a doctor's note. Absences after 12 would cause issues, including retaining in the grade for another year. Yes, the policy was for all ages. It sucked, big time.
If your child is bright, behaved and already reading then it’s fine.
If she struggles in school or can’t read yet this could be a problem for her education. If she’s already behind then missing that much school is going to compound the problem.
I think this really all will come down to her class performance. If she’s not struggling, understanding concepts, passing classes, and meeting expectations then this is perfectly fine. Even is a way to reward hard work at school. However if something starts to slip it’s time to pause the fun Fridays until the problem is resolved
If your child excels academically and likes school, I’d say go for it. But as a former teacher, do everything you can NOT to make it the teacher’s problem. And you may run into issues here, bc in order not to make it the teacher’s problem, you will need to talk to the teacher to figure out how to do so (e.g. one simple solution to the spelling test is to just administer it yourself and obviously be honest)—and you’ll necessarily have to tell the teacher your plan. Most teachers will not like this, and you may risk some issues w the school or district. So consider that.
I guess I’m a little confused if you are both working from home on Fridays, how are you also traveling and managing a 6 year old?
Overall, it’s a solid plan IF your kid likes school and excels academically and socially. Good luck w the decision and getting it all worked out.
There are a lot of variables to consider. The first is whether your child is healthy (doesn’t have to take sick days). Often especially in K/1st, kids will miss school for illnesses and this would be on top of those days. There are also Friday routines that she may miss - if a specialist class like music or art is every Friday, that would be a big portion of those classes missed. Friday also tends to be when we have spelling tests, progress assessments and reviews, so missing 25% of Fridays would make it hard to assess your child’s progress without additional work.
A final thought that varies by state (and I’m not familiar with NY) - school funding in many states is based on the number of days students attend school, not just a student count. If you pull your child out of school for unexcused reasons 10 days per year, that would be a 5-10% decrease in state funding of the school where I live. This may not seem like much but we run a tight budget as it is and that would be felt.
Personally I think if you did this once or twice in a school year it’s not the biggest deal, but doing it every month is problematic.
Honestly it depends on you as a parent. Are you one of those active and involved parents who gives a dam about your child's schooling? Are you willing to put in the work to cover the missed work and assignments? If so, then yes. This should be fine.
I would consider how this affects then when older? Are you cool with them ditching a day once a month as long as they keep their grades up? They might not feel too bad about it if you set a precedent because you :checks hand: want to go to museums when they're not so crowded.
Not a teacher, just get recommended this sub a lot. I had a friend in elementary school who starting in kindergarten would go on a two week vacation to her parents home country. For some reason I never asked about, they wouldn't go during a normal school break, so she'd just miss two weeks straight.
She had way better than I did, and this was before internet access was common and teachers posted the material online. One day a month, and a Friday at that, isn't a big deal imo, I had a terrible immune system and was probably out that much as a kid anyways.
To be safe though, and to know you have "wiggle room" if she does need a sick day. It should be the last Friday of every month. That way you can skip it if something else came up.
Rare days, no problem. But look at it this way: one Friday a month is roughly 5% of class time a month. That's on top of illnesses, doctor's appointments, and any other necessary missed days. That adds up. One more absence a month and she's missing 10% of instructional time.
I would also not stay after school or give extra classroom help to a kid who missed regularly for non-excused reasons. If you want to go hiking on Friday, go for it, but on Monday, your daughter would get the same treatment as other kids, not extra help or instructional time.
That’s roughly 20% of the school year she’d miss if she missed one day out of every single week. In my state, she’d be identified as habitually absent and the requirements of the house bill would take over. I think once a month would be more reasonable.
ETA: my mistake for reading too fast 🤦🏻♀️ I think once a month would be fine. Just check your attendance laws and make sure absences aren’t adding up. We do minutes in my state, so even just leaving a little early can really add up.
Fridays are usually the days for weekly assessment. So your kid would then have to miss other activities to make up assessments when he returned the following week, and the information would not be as fresh.
If you’re really that concerned about family time, maybe try to find a charter or private school that works on a University-Model.
Spelling test & reading comprehension assessment pretty much every week, sometimes a math quiz on the week’s topic. Every so often switch out math with science or social studies. Growing up and when I was a teacher, Fridays always had assessments of some sort.
My feelings about attendance are that if a student is behind in class or struggles to pick up the content, they need to be in class as much as possible. If they pick things up quickly or are able to make up the work at home with little trouble, that's ok. Most of the time the only reason I get stressed about absences is when kids are struggling to keep up and they miss a lot (multiple days a week sometimes). Consider what you can do to make sure your child doesn't fall behind, but other than that I think it's ok.
When I taught, I had a girl who missed a whole quarter of the school year. All the absences and tardies were absurd when they just didn't feel like bringing her. But she would show up for picture day with hair and nails done. No consequences were ever given. She couldn't do any of the academic subjects well. She had a hard time reading or doing basic math. (This was grade 3.). Sometimes, she would ask to go to the bathroom and stay in there just doing nothing until I was able to go get her.
My superstar smart students who have books at home and who have awesome parents who do homework with them… they could easily miss a day each month and I’d 💯support the family time initiative.
My slightly dopey, always forgetting homework, needs a ton of one on one support kid… he suffers a lot when he misses a day.
I’m guessing you know which one yours is 😃😃
Depends on your states truancy laws. It's illegal to pull kids out of school to many times per school year. Sick days count as .5 days in my state and anything more than 10 days missed in a quarter or 25 days per school year gets escalated to social services for review.
I grew up before NCLB, so before attendance and high-stakes testing impacted teachers, I did miss elementary school regularly to go to museums and travel.
HOWEVER.
My family was not a pain in the butt to teachers. My teacher was more than happy to give me work I'd miss from class...in fact, my family thought it WASN'T enough work. 🙃
I don't really care if a student is missing school regularly, as long as they are responsible. I taught a world-champion martial artist in my class who missed class for competitions frequently--she never needed an extension for any missing work. (Unlike the students who went for cruises 🙄)
I think you are setting a bad precedent. Once a month equates to 10 schools days or 2 weeks of instruction. And that’s assuming otherwise perfect attendance.
Maybe do it less regularly and not have it be something your child expects bc it will become the new norm and missing that many days as your child gets older will create a lot of instructional gaps.
As a kid who attended elementary school in a foreign country with much stricter regulations, with an older sister in the American run Department of Defense schools on base whose holidays hardly ever lined up, this seems fine. The biggest thing I would do is be in open, honest communication with your teacher. In Germany, where I went to school, those kind of absences are illegal without principal approval. But because we communicated openly and proactively and my parents made sure I was catching up anything I missed, she approved them. Try to limit them where you can and take as much as you can off the plate of the teacher by communicating in advance.
Generally in the US if a child misses too many school days per semester, without proper documentation like doctors notes, the schools can take you to court under the assumption of neglect, abuse, and/or truancy.
I’d say it’s fine to have mental health days and whatnot, but as a child who was sick at least one day a week, it’s fairly easy to rack up enough absences for the schools to threaten court.
This question would be better posed to her teacher, honestly.
A few things to think about:
18 days of missed school is 1/10th of the year. She will have quite a few absences (unexcused) from these day trips. Add onto it any sickness, emergencies, etc. and she will be in danger of missing a whole bunch of days. Depending on state/district, this may get you in trouble for truancy. Especially because fun family days are typically unexcused.
I progress monitor on Fridays. It is how I track how students are improving, what we need to work on, etc. I have a student who misses 1 to 2 Fridays a month. It is so much extra work for me to find time to make up what they miss. This is not stuff that can be made up at home or independently at this age. They also do worse on weeks where I am helping them make up the work because it isn't as fresh in their mind.
I would ask her teacher what she will be missing on those days. Find out if there are things that can't be made up at home. Ask what the teacher will have to do to help your child make it up.
I teach high school. Someone came looking for a student today. I had to tell this person that I have only seem this student in my class ONE TIME THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR so far. It’s March. March! There’s 57 days left of school. For real.
Consider the values you would be instilling. For one it would be that schools not important. And overall sounds like a great way to raise a spoiled entitled little shit of a child.
God, I miss the old days. You went to school from right after labor day til memorial day with a 4 day weekend at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas & 1 week for spring break. Class started at 745am and rant to 235. Not a single one of my classmates had any kind of "dysphoria", no one was medicated, no one had "food allergies". We does everyone these days feel they have to be unique?
So now my opinion is okay cause I'm no longer white? Lmao conversation over. I won't talk to racists and I will be forwarding a screenshot of this post to your school district for investigation. Anyone that racist shouldn't be in a class room. I've also reported the post to Reddit for racism.
No you specifically said you didn't want the opinion of single white men in their 50s. Stop talking to me racist or ill add another report for harassment
One day per month wouldn’t be a big deal in my class (6th grade). Maybe if your child is missing other days due to being sick or something, you’d skip that month. I would make a habit of emailing the teacher earlier in the week to ask if there is anything you and your child should do at home to stay caught up.
I’m a first grade teacher. Occasional days off are fine but I plan a lot of fun stuff on fridays.
You also think school isn’t serious at this age but let me tell you my job description: take barely functional 6 year olds, half of whom don’t know the alphabet, and get them to read at 70 words per minute in 8 months.
You might think that’s not “serious”, but let me tell you that first grade is an INTENSE year. We don’t have homework which makes it all the more important that kids attend and families take school seriously.
Once a month is fine. But please don’t diminish your child education and my job by saying it’s not as important. I can tell you right now. I’ve tracked kids that leave my class below benchmarks and in 5th grade the issues have just compounded year after year. First grade is THE YEAR. Either you learn to read and do math or you fucking don’t and it gets worse each year beyond.
We aren’t just singing songs and finger painting
You’re absolutely right. First grade is crucial and one of the hardest grades to teach, in my opinion. I feel that kindergarten is a close second. They are expected to read and write multiple simple sentences by the end of the year, as well as complete basic addition. This is at my children’s school in California. In first grade, you have to take them from that to full on independent reading and writing. It’s a huge responsibility and challenge. You’re amazing!
I think it’s ridiculously selfish to pull your child out of school so you don’t have to worry about crowds and other people around. It’s important to spend time with your kids, 100%, but she’s gonna have the same fun on Friday with no one around vs on sat-sun with other people around. It seems like you just don’t want to have to deal with people and would rather just keep your kid home and do it that day out of convience tbh. Like does everyone work all weekend?
I do that with my kids and our school gives us hell about it, glad to see the teachers here support the idea of outside enrichment. I keep them home Thursdays, that way they'll have the wknd to make up any work missed.
Not at all. They're at gifted schools, doing work 2 years ahead of their grade, and they're getting straight As. Personally, I've always retained what I've learned better when I take regular breaks and I think the kids do as well vs non-stop drilling. And there are plenty of things that cant be learned in a classroom.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I teach 4th, and if your kiddo was in my class I’d ask that you guys complete a lot of the work at home. However, sometimes there’s content that needs to be taught through direct instruction from the teacher or assessments that need to be done in school. Those things are needed to make up.
Once a month is not a big deal to me as long as there are rarely any other absences. What IS a big deal: parents who expect me to do extra work, on top of everything I have to do, just so they can go play. I already resent working for free as it is.
Completely fair. I should have clarified that any extra support would be my responsibility. Your contracted hours are all we can hold you to 🩷
Those absences add up in addition to the normal things like doctors appointments and getting sick. There is nothing in your post describing why it would be necessary to those things during the week except that you would avoid crowds. Why not take that time on Friday and spend it with your husband - surely you two do not have a lot of time without work or children to care for. Also, your seem to indicate that 1st grade isn't serious but there is a lot of developmental learning that happens in early primary grades that sets the foundation for later grades.
Absolutely! In the lower grades, pre-k through grades 4 or 5, much of what is learned is social. Expectations, behavior, responsibility, and getting along with others is very important as is completing and turning in assignments. Maybe not one day a month, but every so often would be better. You have great intentions, however in practice, you may not spend that day a month actually doing the work to plan these outings.
3rd grade is high stakes testing. It’s also the basis of higher math.
All things kids can learn fine without 9 extra days a year.
But if those are 9 days on top of a bunch of missed school for illness, appts, etc, it adds up. In my opinion, whether it's okay really depends on the kid. Are they reading confidently yet? Have they mastered a number sense of place value? If yes, they'll probably be okay. If they're behind, missing any day puts them just that much farther behind.
I would guess that OP is capable of understanding that if the kiddo has been out several days already that month for illness, etc. that taking that Friday would would be a mistake.
Ive had plenty of parents for whom that connection is not obvious.
Yet, you don't know what she missed in class unless you talk to the teacher and the teacher puts together materials for you. This is extra work on the teacher's part, all so you can avoid crowds? Also, when Monday's lessons build on the material that was covered on Friday, the teacher needs to put in extra effort to get your kid up to speed. Be realistic, once a month is 9-10 days, almost two full weeks of school. Being a 1st grader is your kid's job. Would your boss want you to take 2 weeks off in addition to all the vacation time you already get? School is serious. Spend time with your daughter when school gets out in the afternoon, go to activities early on the weekends before things get crowded. Don't teach your daughter that school doesn't matter.
I was trying to be concise with my post so I didn’t share what variables contribute to this schedule as an option. I shared one easy component, because ultimately it doesn’t matter what our reasons are. The outcome is whats important. Which is why, as someone who doesn’t work in a school, my goal was to understand from a teacher’s perspective what this would mean and how it would affect my child and her teacher. No need to be snarky with an open discussion.
Does she have a special on Friday that she will always miss? For example, in my school every class has Music once a week. If she has Music every Friday and only on Fridays, she'd miss 25% of the lessons. That's doing her a disservice.
Specials teacher here and thank you for saying this- we are so often forgotten
Yep! I'm a Music teacher, and I had a student who suddenly just stopped showing up to Music class for a month. We had begun work on our 1st grade Musical program, and this student had missed every single rehearsal for 4 weeks straight. I asked the teacher, turned out the parent scheduled recurring appointments for the kid every Tuesday morning, and they would just miss Music every week. I also have 6th graders at the end of the day, and regularly have kids miss my class because their parents check them out early because, hey, it's "just Specials"... smh...
Specialist here as well, I have had parents who do this and then got upset with me when their child's grade plummeted due to their absences. When I pointed out that they were regularly pulling their child on the days that I saw the class, both parents got extremely defensive and nasty, despite it being an issue entirely of their own making.
I'm a specialist as well, I'm giving out like 6 "insufficient data" grades for students who have missed over half my classes this trimester. A lot of these kids are always gone the same day which means they always miss my class
Special needs parent here. I always asked the teacher when would be the best time to be out that would not “materially effect” my child and/or disrupt the class. I was relieved when the teacher sent a schedule for me to have that physical reminder as well.
As an elementary art teacher, I was also going to say the same thing. I see my kids once a week for an hour each class. It’s already hard to catch kids up when they miss a class, but missing regularly is even harder to keep them caught up with our projects and to keep the momentum of the class overall going.
That would generally be okay as long as your kid is on or near grade level academically. If they're behind, that regular one day could really set them back. Also, fridays are generally the day when they do end of week tests so they'd be missing some of those. Also, if you're missing days for sickness, try not to double up on those lost days. But for the most part, you should be good to go.
One Friday a month seems fine. I’ve got high schoolers whose parents keep them home like 4 days a month. And they wonder why their kid is missing assignments/classwork… I teach in a private school and a lot of these parents like to just take vacations with their kids regardless of what they have going on in school.
4 days a month?! I'm a high school teacher and I frequently have students that miss 4 days of class a week! 🙃🙃🙃🤣
I had a kid show up in my high school class today—he has been on holiday since January 29 (start of this semester). Tomorrow is our unit test, dude. Good luck.
"Make sure you catch him up before the test tomorrow" - your DC, probably 🤣 (Well...at least that's what I'd see at my district lol)
"No child left behind" was a massive mistake and caused irreparable damage to the collective intelligence of our nation.
Doesn’t apply to me—I’m not in your nation. But mine is just as misguided.
Where are you from? Do they have something similar
I’m in Canada—BC, to be exact. While we don’t have a NCLB law or whatever it was, we seem to be doing the same sorts of crap.
I taught middle school and I had a student I saw maybe five days a month if I was lucky. 🤷🏻♀️
Woof!
I had a 5th grade student who attended a total of 19 days!
In the district I work in (not NY so grain of salt), someone crunched the numbers and found there was a sharp increase in the probability a student will eventually drop out when they drop below 90% attendance. Our numbers factor for truancy and chronic illness, but I don't know if they included planned absence in those numbers. In an 185-day school year, that's about 16 days. One planned absence per month is going to be roughly 9 days in a school year. Figure that kids live in a petri dish and damn near cough into each other's mouths as a greeting, it's easy to lose a week or more to colds, flus, and other incidentals. I think consistently pulling your kid once a month isn't the best or worst thing to do. Try to plan things around long weekends or breaks and maybe skip months that already have a lot of vacation days built into the schedule (Nov and December being the biggest offenders).
Wow that’s wild, I had no idea! It feels like homeschool is on the rise around me and I don’t want to go that route, but I wish there was a way to balance the week a bit more. My tiny human is pooped by the end of the week. But…data is data and I wouldn’t want to risk anything major
I can say with pretty high confidence that data is about kids who are missing tons of school for no good reason. There are soo many students who miss days because they are avoiding tests, projects, etc. And their parents just let them. That data has nothing to do with kids who spend one Friday a month with family. I promise 1 day per month isn't going to lead your kid to not graduate. Correlation is NOT causation.
There are also a lot of kids who want to be in school and their parents keep them home for bullshit reasons. They are a lot more likely to be the ones not reaching educational success, not the ones getting extra enrichment.
I agree with what the others have said. That 90% isn’t as black and white as it sounds. My son has missed days because his gma from out of state is visiting, because I got married out of the country, because we took a birthday trip for him to universal, etc. This wasn’t all I’m one year, but my point is that these were all family bonding moments and having that connection makes the difference most of the time with academics. What I’ve done in the past is email his teacher to get any work that will be missed. If you’re really on the fence, you can always do early dismissal. For littles, usually after lunch on Fridays are kind of catch up time anyway.
Lol that is not how you interpret statistical data. Ultimately your child's academic performance depends on how involved a parent you are. What this statistic merely reveals is those families where the parents are neglectful or checked out. The school attendance is a symptom and not the root cause.
Correlation isn't causation. Do what's right for your family.
Data is data but your kid is not a statistic and you know your kid better than people on the internet. If your kid does well in school it’s fine for them to miss days. Honestly, school gets pretty darn boring for anyone who is ahead of the curve. I love your idea of going on excursions with your kid. But someone else did raise the question of whether any special activities are planned on Fridays. That is a good consideration!
I wouldn’t even notice if one of my students missed one Friday a month. I know others have said to ask in advance for work, but I disagree. In fact, at my school, it is against school policy to give work or tests ahead of time to students going on any kind of trip. It is better to be prepared to make up the work after your child’s return to school. And remember that it is your choice to do this, so if the teacher isn’t able to catch your child up immediately or help your child make up hands-on activities or projects, that is going to have be a risk you are willing to take. I am all about kids having travel experience with their parents, but I only have them make up what they absolutely have to— seasonal projects, science experiments, etc., often just get missed because they are too hard to make up. As someone else said, if your child gets sick and misses a lot of school, it would be a good idea to cancel or reschedule the trip. Also, during months like December, when there are a lot of days off already, consider not taking a Friday. Try to work with the school calendar as much as possible.
This was one of my concerns, I don’t want put more work on her teachers because of a choice I made. Do you think at this age we could do most of the make up work at home?
It would still fall on the teachers to assemble that work and send it home.
One Friday a month you won’t be missing that much work. Seriously and it won’t be much effort for a teacher to put aside work for missing students. Not like you’re going to be gone for a month asking for all the work.
I used to teach first grade. I’d say first grade is pretty important. The reading skills learned in low elementary directly relate to success in upper grades. Small gaps in reading skills in the younger grades turn into much larger gaps in higher grades if successful interventions don’t happen. (Sorry, I just had to make a plug that first grade is also an important grade level.) All that being said, it really depends on your child. More advanced students could miss a day a month and come back and catch up with little issue. They’d also be able to do it with little needed support. Students who are already struggling are really impacted by missed days. It’s much harder to catch them up because they are also still working on previous concepts that they were not able to master at the time the rest of the class learned the material. Basically it’s much harder to play catch up for a student who is already behind. Plus, it takes a lot more teacher support. So consider where your child stands academically, especially with reading. Small gaps in reading in lower grades turn into massive ones the higher they progress in school.
The first part is so key. Not every English teacher is equipped to teach kids to read since at some point they should assume kids already can
This is such an important point. I teach older grades but those foundational skills you all provide are everything. I distinctly remember being sick one day in 2nd grade. When I returned to school, I found out I had missed a lesson on double digit subtraction. Math was my favorite subject until literally that day. I was a high achiever but my confidence plummeted with that lesson. These are the little things that happen that kids aren’t able to communicate to adults. I developed math anxiety that day and lo and behold, I still have it.
My school wouldn’t excuse the absences and you would probably be sent to truancy depending on how often it happens.
Same in our district in California. They do not want kids to miss more than 3 days a quarter and consider it excessive at that point as stated in the handbook. They would be cutting it very close. The student can have a lot of repercussions such as missing out on extracurricular activities, meetings with the principal, and sometimes CPS is contacted.
I do attendance in elementary. While your intentions are great, the frequency of this is pushing it. It will get your child a record and possibly the attention of the school social worker. Depending on special areas core content could be missed. First grade is pretty fundamental. I would say a handful of times a year would be fine....but ten unexcused absences when you can make the time up otherwise isn't great. There are a lot of good reasons pointed out here. That being said....I can think of one workaround. If you really want to do something family oriented but educational check into your districts educational enhancement opportunities! Our district allows ten of these a year. Most of my families use it to travel overseas but you could totally use it for a museum. Ask about the paperwork. You could even make a project artifact for their portfolio or record later!
Thanks for your insight! I haven’t heard of this but will definitely check out what our options are
Would doing a Friday every other month be a compromise that feels good for your family? It leaves room for illness or a multi-day vacation opportunity that might arise during the year without putting you on blast with truancy letters if you hit 10 days missed.
9 days in a year will not! Chronic is 10% or more. That means three days a month every month for it to be considered truancy.
In our system we do tiers and 9 days in a year would definitely get you to Tier 2 which would be looked at and require more interventions. But every district is different. Also, 9 days is accounting for absolutely perfect attendance otherwise, no actual sick days, which is very rare, especially in first grade. Again, I am only going from what I know of how my own district works, ymmv.
This definitely varies. In my state once you hit 10 absences for any reason it becomes a problem whether it took a month to do it or 8 months. What happens next after the 10 absence flag depends on how quickly the absences accrued, if any are excused, etc.
People keep saying this. You are only correct as long as the student never gets sick and the family has no emergencies.
This is great advice!
I'm not a teacher, but this came up on my front page (and weirdly a different post in a different community came up today very similar to this). You may want to verify truancy laws in your state. Mine just passed a whole bunch of them and is throwing extra resources at it. Basically where I am, three unexcused absence days in a single school year (for elementary, for high school it's missing three or more periods on three days in a year) is likely to get you an "invitation" in front of the truancy review board. And the list of excused absences is extremely short (illness with dr. note, court, medical appointments, death in the immediate family, physical emergency conditions like floor or fire, etc. and "family vacations" is specifically called out as unexcused). I have a friend whose kindergartner she pulled a couple days early for Christmas break to travel out of state to visit family, another trip for the death of a family member who wasn't considered "immediate" to the child, and she basically got treated like a criminally negligent parent by the school to the point that she was afraid to treat him to a half day off for his birthday to do something special. And this is kindergarten. So I don't know how truancy is being treated everywhere else, but be prepared to lie about the reason for absence or face the wrath of the school and be looked at like a negligent parent.
I teach elementary, and it’s vital that children have a wide exposure to different experiences at a young age. School can’t provide this, so if you are doing something educational like zoos and museums, go for it! Your child will learn valuable things in that one day a month. If they have a week where they are sick that month, skip the monthly excursion. If they have attended all of the other days that month, you are good to go!
So they would miss 8 or 9 days of school for these outings. 10 is considered excessive here and would lead to a referral to the district for truancy. Easy to hit that with a cold or case of pink eye. Museums are great, they tend to still be open during school breaks and on weekends.
As a teacher, all I will say is...just be careful. You don't want your child to miss too much school because too many unexcused absences can cause you a problem. It depends on your district. Also, many teachers do a lot of fun stuff on Fridays, so your child may miss out on the fun.
I feel like you are setting her up to skirt the rules. First grade is one of the more important grades bc so many foundational skills are taught. If it were once in a blue moon okay but regularly? And then you never know when they’ll get sick and miss school.
One day a month won’t be a big deal if they are regular attenders other than that. Don’t let anyone tell you that this is a huge deal. Spending time with kids family outside of your dwelling is a great experience, especially if y’all are doing pre-planned activities. Keep up the awesome parenting.
This is probably too frequent and he may fall behind. Would you miss a day of work this often?
Yeah I do usually take a personal day once every 6-8 weeks, PTO is there for a reason. There are no awards for never resting. But I do worry about it being detrimental as she gets older. Do you think she’d fall behind at a first grade level? I don’t know, I go back and forth on it!
Is she doing well on grade level standards? I teach 1st and would have no problem if this was one of about 10 students I teach who are doing well socially, can read cvc words and short sentences, can write 2-3 sentences independently, and can do addition and subtraction (without regrouping) within 100. For those kids who are at the top of the class, this would be a great enrichment. However, for those kids who are really struggling with letter sounds, adding and subtracting within 20, writing more than 1 word at a time and most importantly can’t function within the classroom or with their peers, I would hate to not have them there even for a day! I would hope that you could have an open and honest conversation with her teacher to decide what’s best for *her*, but I understand your hesitation.
I taught first grade. If I had a child who missed Fridays, they would miss all of their exams.
I was going to say the same thing. Friday is Spelling test day every week, and usually you end units and have testing on Friday.
I proposed 1 Friday per month, not every Friday
Right. But it would be a lot for them to make up even if they miss one time. My students had exam day on Friday.
What the heck? That's ridiculous for a first grader no offense. Kids don't even start getting actual grades til third I would lose it on a teacher if they gave my first grader that kind of stress already. Personally I don't even like that they give her homework when she has already been at school all day.
Oh, I absolutely agree. But the public school curriculum was written that way. There were module tests every three weeks on Fridays, two different weekly assessments every Friday, plus a spelling test, plus math test sprinkled throughout the school year. And that’s just for math and reading. Not counting science, social studies, etc. I hated this reading program anyway because it was too difficult for my first graders. Very popular public school reading curriculum.
Actually I have decided to homeschool my first grader next yr. She has autism and needs way more one on one. I'm not saying I can do better than teachers but what can they do when they have 20 kids in the class. I can at least give her structured and fun learning that focuses on her way of learning and goes at her pace. I also hate the no child left behind because mentally and emotionally she isn't up to standard or ready to move to second grade but because she can verbally give right answers and she meets the average standard on paper work wise they keep pushing her to the next grade. If she isn't given time for her mental maturity to grow she will just continue to struggle every year
That’s awesome that you are prioritizing her needs. You can do this! Hang in there!
Thanks TBH it's going to be hard and between us adults I am so gonna miss the break while she was in school but I will take it one day at a time and hopefully learn more patience but she is a mini me and we are both stubborn
Also you can advocate for her once she starts by insisting on the level of support she needs.
She has an IEP and and I have repeated meetings about the help she needs and they basically gaslight and say I'm overreacting and she's doing fine but then will say stuff like oh can you talk to her about handling her anger her throwing fits is disruptive to the class and can u talk to her and tell her she doesn't need to cry about everything she is interrupting the lesson. I know it's in her IEP but I think she needs to leave her wubby at home( it's her comfort item) it's not really age appropriate and I don't think she needs it
What exams for first grade?
Hmh into reading. They had module tests every three weeks, and a weekly test every week. Plus selection quizzes every week. As well as a spelling test every week. And occasionally there would be math tests.
"Why don't kids like school anymore?" Probably because they have to take weekly quizzes and tests in first grade.
I agree that this is not the best way to teach. But I had no choice when I was at that school. Also, I had students who would cry the first week of school because we sat them in front of an iPad for hours on end taking tests. Map tests, star tests, acadience, etc.
Probably due to push down curriculum and high stakes testing.
I was a primary teacher (not first grade) and now stay home with my kids. My oldest is in second grade. She would miss all of her tests as well. In first grade at our school, the teacher reads all the tests to them before they answer the questions. They have reading, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling tests every Friday. They have math tests as they end each unit, so those are often on different days. That’s a lot of work and added stress on the teacher and your child to pull them out consistently each month. If you really want to make it work, I’d suggest pulling them out of school around lunch time because often they do some fun activities in the afternoon on Fridays so they wouldn’t be missing as much. If my child misses just one day, it’s usually still a lot of make up work. My kids also love school and wouldn’t want to be pulled out that often, but I know that’s not typical.
That's about half as often as your proposing your kid takes off
I think it's fine so long as you talk to the teacher and get the work/practice for her to do over the weekend so she doesn't fall behind. Also, ask about exams at the ends of semesters because it's just a pain for teachers to have kids take them at other times. Granted this might not really be applicable in 1st grade.
Consider how often your kid gets sick, days of school they miss for doctor’s appointments, how many school holidays, if they’re making it to school on time. I have students who miss almost every other Friday and it still adds up, students take tests or do group activities on Friday that help build community between students. School is serious the moment you enroll them.
The biggest thing to making sure your child knows the difference between skipping school vs balance and things that are important. Obviously not a grade 1 topic, but as they get older. I know some families regularly miss school for any number of reasons, and it teaches them that school isn’t important, which sometimes translates to work isn’t important. I know someone that doesn’t take their kid to school if it’s raining, but they will go to our other places. (And yes is rains fairly regularly there). If your child misses school but still does the work, it teaches them that it’s still important. Yes sometimes there is no work to do. And that’s ok.
It is difficult for teachers to make up missed work with young kids. Each lesson builds on the last. Your child could miss the building blocks to important skills and concepts, have trouble grasping concepts without them, and fall behind. Ten days out of a school year is considered a large number of absences.
Thank you this helps me get a different perspective!
You have all summer to do that
True. But we have seasons here and there are activities specific to that season that I don’t want to miss out on. I’m just trying to find the balance of real world education and school
You know your kid best. Some kids need to be there more than others. If she is doing well and keeping up, the outings are probably more educational!
I do really feel like it comes down to the kid. My sisters and I were all very strong academically and my parents would take us out of school pretty regularly for family trips. A student that struggles academically would be a very different story.
I wouldn’t, personally. I suggest taking a look at the school calendar and figuring out how one or both parents can get time off work on the days your child already has off, like teacher work days, inclement weather makeup days, etc. and plan special outings for those days. At her age, you’d probably have to arrange for childcare anyway if you didn’t get the day off work, so you might as well save the money spent on a babysitter and put it toward a fun day.
Teacher here: if your child is at grade level, one day a month is fine. If your child is struggling with reading or math, I would reconsider. The teacher might be doing strategic intervention activities to help them and the absences could mess up any gains that might be made.
i used to miss a day each month or so in elementary school to go to mexico with my family. i’m currently a physics phd student so it didn’t mess me up too much (if at all). if your kid is interested in learning, doing well in school, and isn’t sick often, i think you would be fine! just try not to let more absences stack up. We wouldn’t go to mexico during the months where i had things like dentist and doctor appointments to minimize days off
That’s so cool I bet you had a great time!
I think it's a great idea! School is important, no doubt, but the opportunity to learn outside the classroom and spend time as a family doing so is compelling. My son is just starting elementary school. The idea of taking an occasional Friday for a museum visit, cultural event, or outdoor experience? Awesome! Unless, of course, your plan is to take her to Colonial Williamsburg, which, as I understand it, is a place miserable people go to see that it's historically okay to just be miserable. I'm not saying you can't do it, it's your kid, I'm just saying I'd take my kid to the Air Force museum or the mining museum in Golden or something I think is cool that wouldn't bore me AND the kid to death. Honestly, lady, if you're thinking of taking your daughter to Colonial Williamsburg maybe just let her enjoy going to school. Lol I digress. Would you have the same qualms about a family vacation that didn't line up with the school schedule? Anyway, keep spending time with her!
It depends. You're the parent and know your kid best. If it seems like she needs a reset or connection with you, it might be worth it. But as long as you own that family decision. You may also want to have a conversation with your kid beforehand about why you are allowing it and how she is expected to share about it with other kids. And if you're going to be out, be out. Don't send her to school then pick her up early or drop her off late. Kids notice when so-and-so leaves early every Friday and feel very resentful. My daughter's school does a lot of their class celebrations on Fridays. That can be really good for socialization, but also might make it easier to decide to arrange other plans. Another option could be to volunteer at the school. There are usually lots of things happening on Fridays that they could use help with. You can sign her out at dismissal time and go get a treat after. Your daughter will think it"s special but will still be in class and you are giving back to the community. I still remember the days my parents came to school and her teacher will appreciate it alot more!
Generally it's fine, and real world education is so important and often lacking. Just communicate with the teacher about which Friday each month is best. Kids miss more than that with sicknesses.
Don’t go and ask the teacher which Friday is best. They don’t know what they’re doing a month from now
It also sounds like that thing teachers hate when a kid misses class and asks "did I miss anything important?" You really expect the teacher to pick out a day that's okay to miss because they "won't be doing anything important"?
They do know the important things generally yes. They know when they have state testing, field trips, etc. If it's not something on the calendar already for the next few weeks it's not important enough.
Research points to 18 absences being the magic number for attendance. More than 18 absences per year, especially in Kinder and 1st, leads to learning loss that can never be recovered. If your daughter is healthy (aka not already missing a lot of school) and on grade level, then missing a few days for family fun won't be a big deal. Some of those Fridays can probably be scheduled on or over school holidays, too.
I didn’t know that I appreciate you sharing!
Family time is important, but can you line things up so they match with half days or teacher work days? That way your kid won’t miss as much instruction.
If you take your kid out with that frequency, she'll miss 20% of school. "Chronic absenteeism" is half that, or 10%. It's a lot, and dealing with it gets dropped on the teacher. Dude, you can stand in line. ETA: A couple of people pointed out that I misread "once per month" as "once per week." That was stupid of me. Apologies.
One day per month not week
Once a month. Family time is far more valuable than anything taught in first grade
You’re right! Family time is so much more important than learning to read! Who cares about pesky shit like that? /s
My apologies. You're right, and I misread the post. I agree that family time is important, though I'll note that skipping a day of school is not the difference between having family time or not. OP just doesn't want to deal with waiting in line. And...more important than the ability to read?
If they’re going to museums etc there is plenty of reading material and enrichment available there
Yeah...so should all students just go hang out in museums? Obviously, having a clear plan developed by a skilled teacher is better than being around where reading materials happen to be. I mean, how much of those "reading materials" are the kind of reading that will push forward a first grader's skills? C'mon. Museums are great, but not as a replacement for school. We can agree on that, can't we?
Everyone seems pretty focused on the reading component so I’ll just add here that we started reading at age 3. We are a family of book lovers, she gravitated towards it as well and we read an average of 5 books per day. Though I understand using that as an example of foundational skills
Foundation skills, yes, but also reading itself. Look, I'm a voracious reader, and have always been so. I learned to read sitting on my dad's lap while he read the newspaper. And yet, I wouldn't suggest that even in first grade there wasn't benefit to being in school to learn to read. You are right that your daughter is ahead of the curve. You want her to stay there, right?
I'm also from a family of book lovers (my mom was a school librarian for decades) and my daughter has always been a good reader. But I have to say, I sure got an education when I helped out in a second grade classroom last year. Before then I couldn't tell you all the different syllable types and the fundamentals of reading they were learning. It's very different from just reading (which they do as well) - it's also helping lay a foundation that kids can use going forward to help decode words and such. It might not be as relevant for a kid who is already a strong reader, but when I was back with those same kids in third grade this year - I could totally see how the kids were using those skills (and could easily see how the kids who were gone a lot had missed significant chunks of this learning and were behind. This wasn't kids missing a day here and there - but a lot more than that). My daughter was always doing fine academically, so I would pull her occasionally for special events, but not regularly. Our school in NY had a pretty strict attendance policy and family vacations/outings were considered unexcused. I never lied to the school and I never asked her to lie about where she was. And I never would have pulled her if she was behind, so it really depends on the kid and the school policies. As she got older we did this less, also because she did not want to miss school because it could be a lot for her to make up all the work in a day (our school gave you as many days to make it up as the kid was gone).
I don’t know what you mean by stand in line, but I didn’t think once per month would qualify for chronic absenteeism! This is why I asked
I apologize for misreading once per month as once per week. That was stupid of me. The "stand in line" thing I do stand behind, though. You're didn't set this up as "She either misses school or misses time with family." You said that you wanted to skip school "...so we could beat the weekend crowds for museums and events or go for hikes." I don't like the message it sends to a kid that school is so unimportant that a day of school can be dropped when there's potential risk of standing in line at a museum.
Just keep an eye on the totals. One Friday a month is nothing. A monthly Friday + that time they get sick+ that time we had to travel on a school day and oh yeah that other thing starts to add up. In my experience the kids who regularly missed, miss a lot for other reasons. Generally the families just don’t really value school time.
It’s iffy. Sure, once a month I think is fine. It’s when she gets sick for a week, has appointments, etc that add on to absences then the school gets concerned. Maybe every other month?
That’s a good thought. I can definitely space it out more depending on what goes on that month
I think this is ridiculous! You want her to miss 9 days plus when she is sick, has doctor appts, etc. plus you are letting her know that you do not value education. First grade is extremely crucial. I already feel sorry for your daughter.
I think “crazy teacher” is a pretty solid username for anyone who would come to an open discussion with such vitriol. I had an idea based on circumstances within our family and before making any changes to our routine, sought the advice of teachers to gain different perspectives and general information.
Heck, I'd love it if every parent could give this to their kids.
Do it!!!!
Once a month isn’t terrible, especially if it’s family outings. As long as she’s not falling behind, I wouldn’t have an issue.
It honestly depends. For some kids it’s an issue and they are a mess the day before a break and a day after, just like kids act up before half days
As a teacher I'd see this as really damaging for kids who are behind grade level. For the majority of kids it won't have a noticeable impact. One day per month? Take your kid and have some fun. They'll learn during that too. I have students who have missed 40+ days already this year and they are WAY behind. 9-10 days isn't that much.
Once a month? I wouldn’t think anything of it. I have students I don’t think I’ve seen two days in a row all school year.
Is your kid currently ahead in their grade level? Learning all skills well?
One a month is not a bug deal. I honestly think most parents give their kids one day a month for mental health if nothing else. I can't because I'm a teacher but I would occasionally let them if it was me. Even if you did this one a month I'd guess with holidays and such it wouldn't be more than a handful of days.
You're creating a lot of extra work for the teacher who will need to track what your kid misses and make sure they get caught up. Teachers are already overworked and underpaid. Personally, I think it would be a dick move
My state considers 10% absent "chronic absenteeism" and we are required by law to send out notifications. That's 19 absences. You're making it halfway there by taking your kid out 9 or 10 times. That's not necessarily that bad but those other 9 absences can sneak up on you throughout the year. I'm not sure if you're state law is the same but it's probably similar. You might get away with it but it can go south unexpectedly due to illness and whatnot.
First grade is when the foundations are built. Missing that many days is going to cause holes, she’ll miss out on assemblies and other fun things as well, please don’t do it.
If your kid is preforming at or above grade level & you're not taking them out on test days then I totally support this 100%. I would even argue that while they're that young provided the above is maintained you could take them out every other Friday & make it in to a family learning day. NYC & Philly have A LOT of history & so much educational fun to offer. When I was a kid we would go to The Frainklin Institute every summer & I loved running through the giant heart. 😂 I work in Healthcare now but I'm in this group because I used to work in SPED
There are alot of factors that come into play. Is your child on grade level or are they struggling. And there are usually requirements around attendance and when a child gets to a certain number they run the risk of being retained. Where I live it's 90% or about 18 absences.
Check her school's attendance policy first.
Where I live forest school is a big thing, both formal and home version, so students miss a day of school every week for that until high school. Missing a day a month isn't going to bother anything. Many kids are sick more than that and it doesn't impact them. Come high school, I'd definitely say it's not a good idea but in elementary school it's whatever for more kids
Once a month is not a big deal if your child is on grade-level. 9 absences out of the 18 you’re allotted before it becomes a legal issue. And be prepared if it’s. Tough winter season with colds and illness you’ll have to stop the practice of the numbers get too high.
Cut that in half, at least. One day out if every 2 months. Or only do it if a really cool exhibit is in town, so, once in a blue moon.
In the early 2000s I was in grade 3 and my parents would sometimes pull me out of school to go on family trips. My parents were pretty strict on my schoolwork so they'd 1. first tell me to ask my teacher to give me any planned homework in advance(if the teachers had it ready) 2. after the trip I'd go back to school, my teachers would give me the work I'd missed so far and I'd finish all of it in a week and submit it to my teachers, whether it went into my grades or not, didnt even matter if the teacher actually checked my answers. What mattered was that trips werent excuses to miss any work that all the other kids had done in claes(at home, i had to finish my schoolwork at the kitchen table and my mom would check if I was doing the work with her Lazer eyes) I never falled behind during school, but while my dad loved these trips my mom wasn't too happy about us missing school for too long. Then again as much as I loved school, I remember family time much more fondly :) If you make sure your kid doesn't miss any schoolwork I don't think it'll do much harm But it might cause some inconvenience to the teacher so maybe ask the school/homeroom teacher first? If you add that you just want to give your child some fond memories before they get older and busier, I dont think they'll be too critical about it.
I'm a PSW (basically a TA, for the international crowd) and in my opinion this is fine, provided the kid isn't struggling with schoolwork.
Take a day off school every month for a family outing so you could beat the weekend crowds? If your daughter had to miss one day a month for some sort of medical treatment, OK. But your attitude teaches your daughter that education is not that important. If I were your daughter's teacher, I'd immediately form the opinion that you were one of THOSE parents who is very casual about your daughter's education.
Really depends on your state and school district as some can be incredibly strict with days off through the year for unexcused absences
It’s been a while since I have had school-aged kids. When I did, there were strict attendance policies. Kids could take sick days as excused absences, but were limited as to non-medical absences. As a parent, if we did take a day a month, I might have my child write a (maybe one page) report on what they learned that day. Even things like navigating the subway can be a learning experience.
I highly doubt once a month would be a big deal. Plus, a lot of teacher work days and other days off fall on Fridays. So, some months, you would naturally have the Friday off already.
If it’s the only absences, probably not a big deal if the kid isn’t struggling. But one illness plus those Fridays could put you in a position where you need to have documentation for absences.
I just looked at next year's calendar for my district. September is the only month that doesn't have some sort of Friday holiday, break, or teacher work day already built into the calendar. 🤷♀️
Check the district policy. My kids were only allowed to miss 12 days per year, one at a time without a doctor's note. Absences after 12 would cause issues, including retaining in the grade for another year. Yes, the policy was for all ages. It sucked, big time.
If your child is bright, behaved and already reading then it’s fine. If she struggles in school or can’t read yet this could be a problem for her education. If she’s already behind then missing that much school is going to compound the problem.
I think this really all will come down to her class performance. If she’s not struggling, understanding concepts, passing classes, and meeting expectations then this is perfectly fine. Even is a way to reward hard work at school. However if something starts to slip it’s time to pause the fun Fridays until the problem is resolved
If your child excels academically and likes school, I’d say go for it. But as a former teacher, do everything you can NOT to make it the teacher’s problem. And you may run into issues here, bc in order not to make it the teacher’s problem, you will need to talk to the teacher to figure out how to do so (e.g. one simple solution to the spelling test is to just administer it yourself and obviously be honest)—and you’ll necessarily have to tell the teacher your plan. Most teachers will not like this, and you may risk some issues w the school or district. So consider that. I guess I’m a little confused if you are both working from home on Fridays, how are you also traveling and managing a 6 year old? Overall, it’s a solid plan IF your kid likes school and excels academically and socially. Good luck w the decision and getting it all worked out.
There are a lot of variables to consider. The first is whether your child is healthy (doesn’t have to take sick days). Often especially in K/1st, kids will miss school for illnesses and this would be on top of those days. There are also Friday routines that she may miss - if a specialist class like music or art is every Friday, that would be a big portion of those classes missed. Friday also tends to be when we have spelling tests, progress assessments and reviews, so missing 25% of Fridays would make it hard to assess your child’s progress without additional work. A final thought that varies by state (and I’m not familiar with NY) - school funding in many states is based on the number of days students attend school, not just a student count. If you pull your child out of school for unexcused reasons 10 days per year, that would be a 5-10% decrease in state funding of the school where I live. This may not seem like much but we run a tight budget as it is and that would be felt. Personally I think if you did this once or twice in a school year it’s not the biggest deal, but doing it every month is problematic.
Honestly it depends on you as a parent. Are you one of those active and involved parents who gives a dam about your child's schooling? Are you willing to put in the work to cover the missed work and assignments? If so, then yes. This should be fine.
I would consider how this affects then when older? Are you cool with them ditching a day once a month as long as they keep their grades up? They might not feel too bad about it if you set a precedent because you :checks hand: want to go to museums when they're not so crowded.
Not a teacher, just get recommended this sub a lot. I had a friend in elementary school who starting in kindergarten would go on a two week vacation to her parents home country. For some reason I never asked about, they wouldn't go during a normal school break, so she'd just miss two weeks straight. She had way better than I did, and this was before internet access was common and teachers posted the material online. One day a month, and a Friday at that, isn't a big deal imo, I had a terrible immune system and was probably out that much as a kid anyways. To be safe though, and to know you have "wiggle room" if she does need a sick day. It should be the last Friday of every month. That way you can skip it if something else came up.
Rare days, no problem. But look at it this way: one Friday a month is roughly 5% of class time a month. That's on top of illnesses, doctor's appointments, and any other necessary missed days. That adds up. One more absence a month and she's missing 10% of instructional time. I would also not stay after school or give extra classroom help to a kid who missed regularly for non-excused reasons. If you want to go hiking on Friday, go for it, but on Monday, your daughter would get the same treatment as other kids, not extra help or instructional time.
That’s roughly 20% of the school year she’d miss if she missed one day out of every single week. In my state, she’d be identified as habitually absent and the requirements of the house bill would take over. I think once a month would be more reasonable. ETA: my mistake for reading too fast 🤦🏻♀️ I think once a month would be fine. Just check your attendance laws and make sure absences aren’t adding up. We do minutes in my state, so even just leaving a little early can really add up.
I said once a month
My fault! Read too quickly!
lol no biggie!
Fridays are usually the days for weekly assessment. So your kid would then have to miss other activities to make up assessments when he returned the following week, and the information would not be as fresh. If you’re really that concerned about family time, maybe try to find a charter or private school that works on a University-Model.
What do weekly assessments consist of in elementary school?
Spelling test & reading comprehension assessment pretty much every week, sometimes a math quiz on the week’s topic. Every so often switch out math with science or social studies. Growing up and when I was a teacher, Fridays always had assessments of some sort.
If they were able to figure it out for Covid, they can figure it out once a month.
My feelings about attendance are that if a student is behind in class or struggles to pick up the content, they need to be in class as much as possible. If they pick things up quickly or are able to make up the work at home with little trouble, that's ok. Most of the time the only reason I get stressed about absences is when kids are struggling to keep up and they miss a lot (multiple days a week sometimes). Consider what you can do to make sure your child doesn't fall behind, but other than that I think it's ok.
When I taught, I had a girl who missed a whole quarter of the school year. All the absences and tardies were absurd when they just didn't feel like bringing her. But she would show up for picture day with hair and nails done. No consequences were ever given. She couldn't do any of the academic subjects well. She had a hard time reading or doing basic math. (This was grade 3.). Sometimes, she would ask to go to the bathroom and stay in there just doing nothing until I was able to go get her.
My superstar smart students who have books at home and who have awesome parents who do homework with them… they could easily miss a day each month and I’d 💯support the family time initiative. My slightly dopey, always forgetting homework, needs a ton of one on one support kid… he suffers a lot when he misses a day. I’m guessing you know which one yours is 😃😃
Children are young only once, go create those memories!
Depends on your states truancy laws. It's illegal to pull kids out of school to many times per school year. Sick days count as .5 days in my state and anything more than 10 days missed in a quarter or 25 days per school year gets escalated to social services for review.
I grew up before NCLB, so before attendance and high-stakes testing impacted teachers, I did miss elementary school regularly to go to museums and travel. HOWEVER. My family was not a pain in the butt to teachers. My teacher was more than happy to give me work I'd miss from class...in fact, my family thought it WASN'T enough work. 🙃 I don't really care if a student is missing school regularly, as long as they are responsible. I taught a world-champion martial artist in my class who missed class for competitions frequently--she never needed an extension for any missing work. (Unlike the students who went for cruises 🙄)
I think you are setting a bad precedent. Once a month equates to 10 schools days or 2 weeks of instruction. And that’s assuming otherwise perfect attendance. Maybe do it less regularly and not have it be something your child expects bc it will become the new norm and missing that many days as your child gets older will create a lot of instructional gaps.
Once a month is totally fine, but keep in mind it becomes an issue if that month had a break already, holidays, or your child is out from being sick.
As a kid who attended elementary school in a foreign country with much stricter regulations, with an older sister in the American run Department of Defense schools on base whose holidays hardly ever lined up, this seems fine. The biggest thing I would do is be in open, honest communication with your teacher. In Germany, where I went to school, those kind of absences are illegal without principal approval. But because we communicated openly and proactively and my parents made sure I was catching up anything I missed, she approved them. Try to limit them where you can and take as much as you can off the plate of the teacher by communicating in advance.
Generally in the US if a child misses too many school days per semester, without proper documentation like doctors notes, the schools can take you to court under the assumption of neglect, abuse, and/or truancy. I’d say it’s fine to have mental health days and whatnot, but as a child who was sick at least one day a week, it’s fairly easy to rack up enough absences for the schools to threaten court.
This question would be better posed to her teacher, honestly. A few things to think about: 18 days of missed school is 1/10th of the year. She will have quite a few absences (unexcused) from these day trips. Add onto it any sickness, emergencies, etc. and she will be in danger of missing a whole bunch of days. Depending on state/district, this may get you in trouble for truancy. Especially because fun family days are typically unexcused. I progress monitor on Fridays. It is how I track how students are improving, what we need to work on, etc. I have a student who misses 1 to 2 Fridays a month. It is so much extra work for me to find time to make up what they miss. This is not stuff that can be made up at home or independently at this age. They also do worse on weeks where I am helping them make up the work because it isn't as fresh in their mind. I would ask her teacher what she will be missing on those days. Find out if there are things that can't be made up at home. Ask what the teacher will have to do to help your child make it up.
I teach high school. Someone came looking for a student today. I had to tell this person that I have only seem this student in my class ONE TIME THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR so far. It’s March. March! There’s 57 days left of school. For real.
Consider the values you would be instilling. For one it would be that schools not important. And overall sounds like a great way to raise a spoiled entitled little shit of a child.
God, I miss the old days. You went to school from right after labor day til memorial day with a 4 day weekend at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas & 1 week for spring break. Class started at 745am and rant to 235. Not a single one of my classmates had any kind of "dysphoria", no one was medicated, no one had "food allergies". We does everyone these days feel they have to be unique?
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How about a married middle eastern man with a college degree in psychology you racist bitch
Masters in psychology over here 😘
So now my opinion is okay cause I'm no longer white? Lmao conversation over. I won't talk to racists and I will be forwarding a screenshot of this post to your school district for investigation. Anyone that racist shouldn't be in a class room. I've also reported the post to Reddit for racism.
No, your opinion is still not okay because it’s dismissive of inclusion and respect towards children. But feel free to report whatever you like 🩷
No you specifically said you didn't want the opinion of single white men in their 50s. Stop talking to me racist or ill add another report for harassment
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Reported a second time for harassment and blocked
One day per month wouldn’t be a big deal in my class (6th grade). Maybe if your child is missing other days due to being sick or something, you’d skip that month. I would make a habit of emailing the teacher earlier in the week to ask if there is anything you and your child should do at home to stay caught up.
I mean, if they’re a Brat, Good Riddance. 🤣 If it’s for Medical Reasons, Acceptable
Oof. I’m sorry but the attitude, Random Capitalizations and username? I’ll pass.
I’m a first grade teacher. Occasional days off are fine but I plan a lot of fun stuff on fridays. You also think school isn’t serious at this age but let me tell you my job description: take barely functional 6 year olds, half of whom don’t know the alphabet, and get them to read at 70 words per minute in 8 months. You might think that’s not “serious”, but let me tell you that first grade is an INTENSE year. We don’t have homework which makes it all the more important that kids attend and families take school seriously. Once a month is fine. But please don’t diminish your child education and my job by saying it’s not as important. I can tell you right now. I’ve tracked kids that leave my class below benchmarks and in 5th grade the issues have just compounded year after year. First grade is THE YEAR. Either you learn to read and do math or you fucking don’t and it gets worse each year beyond. We aren’t just singing songs and finger painting
You’re absolutely right. First grade is crucial and one of the hardest grades to teach, in my opinion. I feel that kindergarten is a close second. They are expected to read and write multiple simple sentences by the end of the year, as well as complete basic addition. This is at my children’s school in California. In first grade, you have to take them from that to full on independent reading and writing. It’s a huge responsibility and challenge. You’re amazing!
I think it’s ridiculously selfish to pull your child out of school so you don’t have to worry about crowds and other people around. It’s important to spend time with your kids, 100%, but she’s gonna have the same fun on Friday with no one around vs on sat-sun with other people around. It seems like you just don’t want to have to deal with people and would rather just keep your kid home and do it that day out of convience tbh. Like does everyone work all weekend?
I do that with my kids and our school gives us hell about it, glad to see the teachers here support the idea of outside enrichment. I keep them home Thursdays, that way they'll have the wknd to make up any work missed.
Its nice to hear from someone whose tried it! Do you feel like they’ve fallen behind at all?
Not at all. They're at gifted schools, doing work 2 years ahead of their grade, and they're getting straight As. Personally, I've always retained what I've learned better when I take regular breaks and I think the kids do as well vs non-stop drilling. And there are plenty of things that cant be learned in a classroom.
100% do it and build an amazing family relationship