Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

Does your kid take language classes? In MCPS those grades go on the high school transcript.

No we don't miss school, particularly now that we are out of the ES years.

I do like that long weekend in November this year, but you do realize that exists partly because of the election? Are you planning to vote absentee or not at all? What about the half days - are you planning to attend parent-teacher conferences?

You can easily vote ahead of time.

No conferences in MS...and the 10 minute teacher conference in ES is meaningless and can be handled via email.

I wouldn't pull my kid out for vacation. He has missed a few days here and there though (family wedding, leaving early for spring break, stuff like that). His school would get really upset though - it's a DC charter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

Does your kid take language classes? In MCPS those grades go on the high school transcript.

No we don't miss school, particularly now that we are out of the ES years.

I do like that long weekend in November this year, but you do realize that exists partly because of the election? Are you planning to vote absentee or not at all? What about the half days - are you planning to attend parent-teacher conferences?

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't judge somebody else for doing it. I will probably pull my kids out for a day or two here and there. The day before thanksgiving, the day before Memorial Day - that kind of thing. But I don't think I would pull them out for a week.

Exactly this.

Preschool? Miss as many days as you want.
Kindergarten? Maybe a week tops.
1st-3rd Grade? 1-2 days
4th and up - I would not let my child miss school for vacations.

I have a preschooler and 1st grader. My child has missed 1 day for a Disney trip. We tacked on a long random FCPS weekend. We pay $$$ to pay to go away during school breaks. We have double or triple what we used to pay when we did not revolve our vacations around school breaks. Spring break cost us like $12k this year. Same trip cost around 5k previously.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

I teach 8th grade algebra in FCPS, so I can't speak to other places. I just know I've had straight A students drop to a B or even C for the quarter after going on a cruise for a week.

And?

What does it matter? One B or C for one quarter is meaningless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

I teach 8th grade algebra in FCPS, so I can't speak to other places. I just know I've had straight A students drop to a B or even C for the quarter after going on a cruise for a week.

I can see that. We realized that even one sick day could mean a lot of catch up for our son. And he's usually an A student in math. So I can't imagine taking off an entire week unless we were prepared to pay for a tutor to bring him up to speed when we got back.

People don't realize that when kids miss time like that, they not only have to play catch up on the material that they missed but, since math is cumulative, they are lost on the new material that they are learning until they have the missing gaps filled in. If those gaps aren't filled in then they fall behind and never catch up. Add in all the other classes - missed assignments, quizzes, tests and it is a lot to make up.

As a parent, I made sure that if my kids had to miss time from school they were on blackboard doing the assignments that were posted at the very least. That way when they got back to school they could ask questions and get themselves back up to speed.

OP, are you friends in the area? In Fairfax County (VA), there are at least three 4-day weekends due to teacher workdays. Perhaps they are taking advantage of something like that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

I teach 8th grade algebra in FCPS, so I can't speak to other places. I just know I've had straight A students drop to a B or even C for the quarter after going on a cruise for a week.

That's on level in MoCO - not honors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible once your child is in middle school. I have had numerous honors students drop multiple letter grades after missing a week of school. It's just too hard to catch up.

Does honors matter in middle school? My totally average kid earns straight As in 6th grade at mcps---and I feel the grades are pretty meaningless.

I teach 8th grade algebra in FCPS, so I can't speak to other places. I just know I've had straight A students drop to a B or even C for the quarter after going on a cruise for a week.

Anonymous wrote:Until they stop all these meaningless "snow" days, I feel zero guilt. Zero. They've never batted an eye at me though.

Welcome to Washington, that will never change. There are too many back roads that most people forget exist which is why snow days happen when you think they shouldn't.

Late elementary is when the flexibility to take those vacations ends. Or at least that was the magic age for our kids.

Before that I felt free to haul them out of school to visit Mount Vernon or go downtown to see the cherry blossoms.

Until they stop all these meaningless "snow" days, I feel zero guilt. Zero. They've never batted an eye at me though.

I wouldn't judge somebody else for doing it. I will probably pull my kids out for a day or two here and there. The day before thanksgiving, the day before Memorial Day - that kind of thing. But I don't think I would pull them out for a week.

Anonymous wrote:Take all the vacation you can until oldest reaches 7th or 8th grade.

Yep.