Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Notice how they don’t mention that schools are funded on a per child, per day basis? If your child misses a day of school, the district doesn’t get funding for that day.

I went through the EXACT same thing with my son a couple of years ago only they WERE excused and we had doctors notes for every single one. It turned into a real nightmare.

I think there has to be policy in place, sure… but as with most things, there has to be room to give a little.

Good luck. I know it’s a lot of stress.

Good grief! It’s not even *kindergarten* yet!!

I have fond memories of kindergarten. I went half days. We had a recess partway through. We had a snack time. We had a story/nap time. We played games. We made crafts.

Generally, my kindergarten experience was like an early pre-school experience is now.

And ya know what? I still scored nice high scores on my SATs and ACTs in high school. I was on the Dean’s List in college. I have a college degree and could easily have another one if I got my butt in gear and finished off some classes (some day I will, if I care enough about it. heh).

I don’t like the pressure I see schools putting on our kids. And even though the pre-schoolers are likely really enjoying themselves, the pre-schools themselves are putting pressure on parents.

Good luck with your draconian head-mistress!

He he…funny picture in my head…the fearless Hsien behind bars, screaming bloody murder at the wardens…

Sometimes I like to keep my 4-year old home just for some ‘us’ time, without Daddy, without his older brother, just ‘us’. What’s wrong with that? Baaaahhhh…

I remember when I was 6-year-old, I had a classmate whose parents were going to take her to Japan for Christmas. The parents wrote a note to the school saying that my classmate would miss 4 days of school after New Year because the family would be in Japan.

After the teacher read the note, she humiliated my classmate in front of the whole class, saying that the parents had no respect of the school rules.

(That happened when I was a kid in Hong Kong.)

I hope that the headmistress at Stephan’s school is nothing like my teacher. After all, all rules are made to be broken.

Kate: Is that true for the UK as well? I’ve never heard anyone say that before. I know they say they can take the child’s place in class away and give it to someone else but Stephen’s class is very small and is already below the number needed to truly sustain itself.

Gayla: Wow. That does sound bad. I’m only kidding here. The teachers didn’t think it was a big deal at all and other kids in the class have been on week-long pre-approved holidays and weren’t given a hard time about it.

Deb: hehe I’m not too worried and only put this up because I thought it was interestingly threatening. I figure we could always switch to a private school. Ha Ha Ha

Lilian: You are setting a bad example…for ME!!

Angela: What?! Your teacher was insane. I don’t think Stephen’s teachers would ever behave like that. They’re really lovely.

Hsien,

We took all three kids out of school for a week during the term to go to Ireland for a once in a lifetime family reunion. Luckily our school was very accommodating – even though they still got unexcused absences.

In my opinion, my kids learned more in that one week of travel than they did in 3 months of school.

It’s not like you keep him out of school on a regular basis.

My friend’s son’s preschool had all the parents sign a paper saying that they would not take their kids out of school to go on a vacation. Can you believe that?

I missed perhaps 1/4 of elementary school due to illness but the attendence cops did not come after my parents!

Char: For A WEEK?! The horror!

kailani: That’s just forcing the parents to lie later on.

kristina: Yeah but back when we were kids, parents weren’t getting prosecuted for kids’ offenses. Now it’s routine. ARGH.