Question for parents of travel sports kids

[Anonymous]

DC (3rd grade) will be traveling for some competitions this year, and it will require missing some school days for travel, probably one day a month, possibly two. I mentioned this to DC's teacher and she said no problem, they have had kids do this before, but I'm wondering if this is something I should talk to the principal about in advance too? I know these won't be excused absences, but I'm thinking that just as a courtesy, we should let them know in advance instead of pretending DC is sick or something on the missed days or something. Just wondering what others have done. Thanks. (And just to pre-empt people who will excoriate me and say "your child shouldn't miss school for this," this is something we have considered long and hard, and think it is better to miss a day of school a month rather than return home in the wee hours and send DC to school when DC would be exhausted. DC has no academic issues and can easily make up any work.)

[Anonymous]

Not sure why you would need to tell the principal. A missed day is a missed day. FWIW, missing school and making up work is pretty easy in 3rd grade. Doing this in MS or HS is a lot harder and more difficult for the child to make up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why you would need to tell the principal. A missed day is a missed day. FWIW, missing school and making up work is pretty easy in 3rd grade. Doing this in MS or HS is a lot harder and more difficult for the child to make up.

OP here--thanks. I absolutely agree that it gets more difficult each year. We're just taking it one year at a time--who knows if DC will even still be doing this in MS or HS...

[Anonymous]

Wow what sport is this? I have 2 kids in travel sports (4th and 6th grade) and they have never missed a day of school nor would be expected to. Maybe we've been lucky so far.
I think it does affect them to miss school - 2 days out of 20 days (a month) is 10%.