5 Tips for When Vacation Means Missing School

This time of year, the sun is finally peeking through the clouds more often, hints of new life are everywhere in nature, and summer seems to finally be in sight. Many of us feel that burst of excitement and energy and just want to get out and enjoy life!

While Spring Break provides a nice opportunity to take a family vacation, it may not always sync up with your family’s vacation dates.  It may also be that your family is going to extend out a weekend and go on an adventure.

If you do find yourself taking a trip before school gets out that causes your student to miss a few school days, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Teachers are not the vacation police! Most teachers understand that you may take a vacation in the middle of the school year. Sometimes they do too!  There is no need to make your student feel like they have to lie about where they have been or where they are going. 
2. Do let teachers know ahead of time and they may be able to send home work your student will miss while they are gone in advance, or at the very least have it ready for them when they get back.
3. Whether your student does their make-up work ahead of time and is ready to turn it in when they return back to school or completes it afterward within a given time frame, just make sure they do it!
4. Anticipate that your student will need your help on their make-up work. If your student misses a few days of school, then they are also missing instruction on new concepts and skills being introduced.  Their teacher is not going to have the necessary time to set aside and reteach them a full lesson.  Make sure your student understands the content they missed.  If you need help in this department, our FREE Grade Level Math Guides can help.
5. Finally, and this one is the most important and overlooked, find out if they will be missing any tests while they are not in school and ask if there is a study guide. Then set a day with the teacher for those to be made-up so that you can plan and help your student study. So many times, when a student misses a test because they are absent, they perform more poorly on it because they do not prepare for it like they would have if they had not missed school.

As long as you can commit to following through with these 5 things, I promise your child’s teacher will not think you are a bad parent!  In fact, they will probably sit back and think, Wow! I wish all parents would be that proactive. Let the vacations begin!