John Kelly, Ph. D.

“School today isn’t what it was 40 years ago when we sat in nice rows and worked out of workbooks most of the day. Today, elementary (and secondary) students are learning with hands on activities and materials. Primary students are working in literacy centers, science labs, computer labs, group learning situations, and many more dynamic learning scenarios. When a child misses these kinds of school experiences, they can’t be made up with paper and pencil make-up work. Parents with primary children say, “Well it is not as if my child is missing a trigonometry or a physics class.” No, I answer, but they are missing the concepts that build up to those advanced classes even if they are only in first or second grade.”

“Anybody can take the book home and read it, do the questions, etc. But has learning really taken place? When a child is absent they miss the unique qualities of school, such as higher-order-thinking questions, discussions, creative thinking and writing, and the social interactions. So much new information is disseminated in one day! That lost day cannot be replicated. It is simply lost forever.”

“Students that go on vacation are often the ones having academic problems to begin with and can ill afford to get further behind. Yet parents complain when the student has to do both make-up work and their normal classwork at the same time.”

“Though the parents ask for work to be done on the trip, it often doesn’t get done even after the teacher spends time a large amount of time putting materials together. So teachers have to spend extra time at the expense of others to reteach material missed.”

When teachers ask me what can be done, I tell them the only legal consequence for these type of excessive absences occurs when the child’s attendance drops below 90 percent for the semester/year. The parents whose children are excessively absent are not held legally accountable; yet they are often the very first to point fingers at the teacher when their child is not as successful as they wish.

Teachers do not object to the “once-in-a-lifetime educational trip” that comes along. With proper planning and sufficient advance warning from the parents, that kind of learning opportunity can be incredible. But teachers do object to the once-a-semester “frequent flyer,” “hotel holiday,” “Spring Break Padre Island extender” and “Ski Slope Extravaganza.

One last quote from a teacher: “Parents need to understand that school is a higher priority than birthday ski trips, cheaper air fares and good hotel ccommodations.”