What about just piling in the van and driving somewhere? That doesn’t cost more in the summer.

Is the expectation that a family takes a 2 week luxury vacation every year?

> What about just piling in the van and driving somewhere?

What about schools not sticking their nose too far out into the parts of life that they should not control? Like where and when we take our kids on vacations.

If my kids get good grades and catch up on any missed homework the school should not get spun up about them missing some days.

Turning schools into a mild version of prisons is not good for anyone -- kids, parents or the society. My 2c.

you can't teach very well if 20% of the class is absent, it just creates an absurd situation for the teachers

it's not that hard, if you commit to going to school, then just try to go and do vacations during school holidays

otherwise, just home school

This is true, high absentee rates make teachers’ jobs much harder. It’s the kind of thing that seems ok when it’s just your student, but if everyone behaves that way, it harms the whole class.

> you can't teach very well if 20% of the class is absent, it just creates an absurd situation for the teachers

Why is this? If true, why this problem is not appearing in private schools that pretty universally do not object to parents taking their kids away for vacations or family events as long as kids master the material.

The teacher needs to have a program of study with specific topics covered, recommended exercises for practice and required homework to check understanding for each. If a student masters the material why does anyone care if he skipped a week? And if the student does not know the material he should get a bad grade, whether he was in every class or not.

That is how the school worked where I grew up (Eastern Europe) and it seems vastly superior to the mess we have in the US today, where many public schools teach to the lowest common denominator, making capable kids bored at best and and a nuisance to the teacher at worst.

because what's going to happen is if enough students are absent, there will be a big number of them who thought they would master the material no problem, would turn out to be wrong and then would bug the teacher incessantly to let them retake or do something to avoid bad grades. in most high schools in America or in many there are multiple difficulty courses, if your kid can master it no problem even when being absent, it is likely that this kid is not taking serious enough courses.

Driving in the summer costs more;

Historically, retail gasoline prices tend to gradually rise in the spring and peak in late summer when people drive more frequently. Gasoline prices are generally lower in winter months.

>https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...

> Is the expectation that a family takes a 2 week luxury vacation every year?

Only at a certain level of upper-middle-class affluence, but for them probably. But even one-week cruises are much cheaper off-season.

Also, lots of travel is based around life events. I can’t control the fact that funerals and weddings can happen at any time of year.

We’re going to two in-law weddings this year and missing a single day of school. Fly in, fly out.

Funerals are bereavement leave from school so you don’t need to worry.

I feel like 90% of midwesterners would be agreeing with me…

It can entirely depend on your family/friend circle. For me and mine, In-n-Out is expected, weddings are happening in the locality of one of the families, many are day trips.

Other people's family and friends will have multiple destination weddings, etc.

Still suspect it's not a major component, kids can only have so many grandparents after all.

Is there a regional component to this?

Some of the “meh, missing two weeks a year for vacations isn’t a big deal” attitudes in this thread are very surprising to me, also as a midwesterner.

You can control if you are going...

Lol. Yes I suppose.