Anonymous wrote:Why do they do that? It is like begging kids to leave early...

They did that because of actual actions of parents over the years pulling kids out early anyway. First they added the half day before Thanksgiving, to deal with parents picking kids up early from school. This resulted in families just skipping that day completely. Then the ES/MS half days for student conferences around Nov 11 got extended to HS so they could watch siblings. Then because of too much disruption in early November/2nd quarter because of conferences plus closing for voting, they moved the conferences to Thanksgiving week and closed on the Wednesday.

Attend or not as you choose. Just manage the consequences. But it is still two school days, so no, we don’t want to close the entire week. Not everyone is traveling or taking big vacations and we don’t need to extend the school year by two days to accommodate those who choose to do that.

Why do they do that? It is like begging kids to leave early...

Anonymous wrote:They had actual work those half days and I think one class had a short quiz or exit card. If your child is a good organized student with nice teachers I'm sure it won't be an issue. If your child struggles with organization or is having trouble in any case I would avoid doing that.

FWIW, my HS age child hates to miss school because it's a lot of trouble to track down every teacher to make up the work but we did the early vacation thing a lot in MS and it was fine.

Treat it like a sick day, it’s skill to get make up work done, and I don’t see why teachers won’t understand.

But second the post above, there is no school on Wed, it shouldn’t be a problem for OP.

They had actual work those half days and I think one class had a short quiz or exit card. If your child is a good organized student with nice teachers I'm sure it won't be an issue. If your child struggles with organization or is having trouble in any case I would avoid doing that.

FWIW, my HS age child hates to miss school because it's a lot of trouble to track down every teacher to make up the work but we did the early vacation thing a lot in MS and it was fine.

Anonymous wrote:Depends what school your kid is in. At Blair, classes proceed as usual.

omg please stop

We booked our vacation that week. There is no time to do tests on half days

My oldest never wanted to miss a day of classes, because he had a lot of AP classes and didn't want to get behind. Also, some teachers purposefully schedule tests right before or after breaks to ensure kids don't skip class, which is a whole other subject for a post...

However both my children were happy to stay home on "wellness" half days. That way they could do homework!

Depends what school your kid is in. At Blair, classes proceed as usual.

There is no school the day before Thanksgiving.

We did this last year, took our kids out of the country early for the Thanksgiving early and our kids complained cause they found it difficult to catch back up when they got back.

If your kids are in challenging or advanced AP or IB classes, I’d think twice.

I think only the day before Thanksgiving is safe to miss at the high school level.

Anonymous wrote:Question for experienced parents. There are 3 half days the week of thanksgiving. I have a freshman. What do they do on 1/2 days? In middle school it seems like they basically did nothing. I am thinking on pulling him on Wednesday so we can travel to see family.

Monday and Tuesday 11/21 and 22 are early release days. Wednesday through Friday schools are closed.

Kids only go to half their classes each day when there are two consecutive ones at our school- not sure about the third. It would be okay to miss that Wednesday- many kids go.

Those days are quiet and tons of kids are missing. They're not missing anything earth shattering. Some teachers show movies, some give time for kids to catch up on missing work. Have your kid talk to the teacher to make sure there's nothing new, but of all the days to miss, that's a good one.

Out high school runs full class periods spread over two half-days. Regular lessons.

Question for experienced parents. There are 3 half days the week of thanksgiving. I have a freshman. What do they do on 1/2 days? In middle school it seems like they basically did nothing. I am thinking on pulling him on Wednesday so we can travel to see family.