Reply to Is it OK to let my 2nd grade daughter take off from school in the last week of this semester.?

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Reply to "Is it OK to let my 2nd grade daughter take off from school in the last week of this semester.?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]REGULATION MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
Student Attendance
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/jeara.pdf

e) Any absence for reasons other than those specified above may be considered either lawful or unlawful by the principal/designee.
 Discretion is permitted in designating absences as lawful for reasons other than those above.  
[u][b]Normally, requests for family travel are not lawful absences. [/b][/u]
 
A student's absence may be deemed lawful at the discretion of the principal/designee based on the following considerations:  
 
(1) Recommendations from the student's teacher(s) concerning the possible effect of the anticipated absence on the student's academic progress and the options available for make-up work before making a decision to approve the absence 
 
(2) Number of lawful and unlawful absences student has accumulated to date 
 
(3) Purpose or special significance of the absences 
 
(4) Duration of the absence 
 
f) For consideration of discretionary absences, notice and request must be provided prior to the absence. 
 
[/quote]

Yeah, but this is just a regulation defining "lawful" and "unlawful" however it wants to.  It's the school system's policy, but it's not actually a law.  So the policy might call your absence "unlawful" but that does not make it a crime or "against the law" in the way most people use that term.  So, as a take-away, the school system's policy may deem the absences resulting from your trip "unlawful" but the principal has the discretion to say they are "lawful" and practically speaking there is no consequence in 2nd grade to having "unlawful" absences.  Our principal was just saying at our PTA meeting that if your child misses a certain number of days there is an MCPS form letter that she is required to send and she is not accusing you of being a bad parent, but she is required to send it.

I don't know what the MS and HS policies are now.  When I was in HS, if you had 5 unexcused absences in a class you [b]failed the entire semester[/b] so there was a major consequence to too many unexcused absences.  And your parent couldn't write "we are going on a trip" and get it excused.  They had to say you were sick or get the principal to approve the trip as an "educational experience" (which my mother did once when my grandparents took me to South America).  [/quote]

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