Karri Weathers recently wrote about the concerns of tardiness and truancy in the education blog. She makes excellent points on how tardiness and truancy can disrupt the class, and that it is often the fault of the parents, especially in younger children.
When my kids were in school, we usually missed a week or two each school year because our extended family was so far away, and so we would visit them when we could best afford. This may have meant traveling early before the rates went up for holiday season, or taking a random week, when flights would be inexpensive. We would ask for work to take with us, but we could tell this annoyed the teachers. Our requests were often denied. One could say we should have traveled during the allotted time, but we not only had to consider school holidays, but my husbands, and our parents’ work schedules as well. As far as we were concerned, if the children took the work with them, and they only missed 5-10 days a year of classroom them, then it should not be a problem. Unfortunately it was.
As far as tardiness was concerned, each morning I would turn into “yelly-screamy” woman trying to urge the kids out of bed, get food in them, and get them in the car in time to get them to the bus. Our bus only came to the entry of our neighborhood, and we never had enough time to walk to it.
Between getting on the teachers bad side because of our “vacations, and barely making it to the school bus each morning, we were having conflicts that I do not miss. “Yelly-screamy” woman only comes out on the occasional morning when we have plans we cannot be late for, but because it is not a daily occurrence, everyone is a lot more happy. In addition, we can go on “vacation” whenever we wish. If the children miss a class, they only miss one class, since classes are weekly. In addition, we have no problem getting the work to take with us.
I sure am glad we homeschool.
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