Jumping Around a Little Here
I’ve been talking about homework and the book The Case Against Homework. Yes, I know I’ve been talking about it a lot. The whole point is that I know what’s coming my way. I’ve listened to parents for years talk about how horrible the homework assignments of their children are…it is only a matter of time.
But, what I was going to toss at you today is another idea. As most of you know, we took a vacation last week, allowing our 5 year old to miss 4 days of school. I told the teacher over a week ahead of time that we would be gone and asked her to send his work with him. She did and we held study time each day. Dad would play on computer, 3 year old would sleep and 5 year old would do his “studying” and I would help than head off to nap as well. It worked pretty well for us.
Upon returning, I had this conversation with my cousin who just happens to be the parent of a child in the same school system as my 5-year-old. Notice I am not blaming this on the administrators at his school specifically as I know some people can/do/will. Even my cousin approached it from that angle. Anyway, it went like this:
Cousin: Did you get permission from Mrs. Smith (not principals real name)?
Me: No, why?
Cousin: Well, you know it won’t be excused absence if it wasn’t pre-planned don’t you?
Me: Well, I knew it was going happen, it was all planned out in my mind and in the form of dollars paid for over 2 weeks prior to us going…
Now, I know that this could potentially be an issue. I actually had heard other parents talk about getting permission from the principal before allowing their children to miss school for such a family absence. However, after I spoke with his teacher, I never really thought anymore about it. I didn’t do it disrespectfully. I simply didn’t think it mattered. I made the decision to keep my son home, take a vacation and I made plans to take his school work with us and do it.
So, as I wrote his note yesterday to request that an excused absence be granted for him for last week (which is how it is done whether the kid is sick, dying or gone to grandma’s house), I wondered with much trepidation how my note would be dealt with once it made it to the office for approval.
No one called me to ask me if I had bumped my head or anything so I figure one of two things. One, his teacher explained that I had spoken with her as much as almost 2 weeks prior to the absences or they are waiting to bombard me when I go inside to pick my son up this afternoon. Which do you think will happen just reading the above conversation and information?
I’ll let you know tonight how it all goes down. Unfortunately my tooth-losing 5-year-old has a dentist appointment directly after school today so we will be doing that before I return home to update you, but, go ahead, make some guesses. I’ll let you know tonight.
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