I Pulled My Kids Out of School for Vacation. So What?

I’m writing this post from sunny Florida, where I escaped to with my three kids. It isn’t so much a vacation (did I mention I have three kids with me?), it’s more like parenting in a warmer climate. But I will take it. Normally I live in New York, where, like most of the country, we are in the midst of the never-ending, blizzard-a-week polar vortex. The snow stopped being fun about five storms ago. I am not a weather complainer but it officially got to me and I had to get out of dodge. My kids did, too. I’m incredibly lucky that my parents have a place in Florida and were happy to host my brood and airline tickets were dirt cheap (my husband is away on business, which was another reason to bolt). I'm also a freelance writer which means I can work from anywhere. The only problem: My oldest is in first-grade and I had to pull him out of school. Right after he was off for an entire week for winter break. (It didn’t work out for us to be away then, plus airline tickets during school vacation time are outrageous.)

When I called the attendance woman to tell her he’d be missing school for a week and a day, I was a little nervous. “And what is the reason, hun?” she asked. “Um…vacation,” I said tentatively. “We had to thaw out.” She said she understood and when I asked if there was a certain amount of allowed absences or whatever, she just said, “no one’s coming after you.” And then she told me how bad the forecast was for New York. “Stay there,” she said. “But you didn’t hear that from me.” Love her! The reason I was anxious is that I know some schools frown upon vacations during the school year (I have friends who’ve gotten a lot of flack for taking their kids away). Teachers are under immense pressure to get their students up to snuff on Common Core and to ready them for state tests and if the students aren’t there, it makes their job even harder. In England you get fined for taking your kid out of school for vacation — £60 a day! And if you don’t pay the fine within 28 days it goes up. One couple was recently fined £630 for taking their three kids on a weeklong vacation. Oh, and failure to pay results in a three-month jail sentence. Can you imagine?!

Sure, I’m feeling a little guilty about his truancy (I’m a rule follower, what can I say?), but as I look at the temps back home and see more snow predicted for Monday, which could very likely mean another snow day, I have no regrets. It’s not like he’s missing SAT prep for crying out loud. He’s missing the letter U and learning how to tell time. I think I can handle that. His teacher sent us away with tons of worksheets and his homework and we’ve been chipping away at it a little each day. But we’re also swimming, biking, walking, golfing, and breathing fresh air that doesn’t hurt our lungs. We’re feeling the sun on our face and the sand in our toes and we’re having fun together, the kind of fun you just can’t have when you’re cooped up in a house for the 85th day in a row. If we didn’t all miss my husband, we’d probably stay until Spring.

Do you pull your kids out for school vacations? Would you? Do you think I was wrong to do it?