And you will need written permission to take your son out of the country if his father is not going on this trip.

Has he attended school before or have you always homeschooled?

I would be less worried about what to say to the school and more worried about the fact he'll miss that much. Is he entering ahead or behind his peers academically? Going from homeschool to public is a big adjustment, socially as well as academically.

That would not fly in our school district. Those absences are unexcused and he would be counted as truant. MAYBE--if you start asking at the beginning of the year, you could get teachers to work with you. But he would have to hand in all the work as soon as he gets back. I say he stays home with his dad and you go with the other kids.

You can ask the school for work to take with you. Most teachers will assign projects they can do on the road and turn in. It is very easy to ask for.

We did that for a two week trip we took with our daughter when she was in 2nd grade and it was fine.

Most districts have County Offices of Education separate but connected to the School District Offices, that can also handle your request.

The US school system is so decentralized that the policy in District A may be quite different from that in District B, or C... The only way to find out is to ask, or rather for his father to ask, if he is on board with this. And if he is not you can't take the kid out of the country in any case, as Kathie pointed out.

>>Most teachers will assign projects they can do on the road and turn in. It is very easy to ask for.

We did that for a two week trip we took with our daughter when she was in 2nd grade and it was fine.<<

For one thing there is a huge difference between 2nd grade and 6th grade. But in any case to say that most teachers/schools will assign work is a big leap. No one on here knows. ONLY the school involved (and the father) have a say.

BTW - if this was in England it would be against the law and the parents would be prosecuted.

What Janis said. The UK recently tightened their laws to restrict parents from adding a "few" days to trips to Orlando or Marbella. It really affects their education.

Some US states base school aid on the average number of students in attendance. These districts are not going to make it easy for you to take a middle-schooler out for three weeks.

FINALLY, the 800 POUND GORILLA. You can't take your children out of the country without written permission of your husband or of the judge who wrote the custody orders. It's not quite that simple, but I am not far off. If he is the custodial parent, you can't go anywhere without dealing with him. Lawyer up. The schools are not your real problem.

<<<I'm not sure this is fair to the kid. If he has never been in a school before, this is not just the difficulty of starting a new school, but a whole new experience. Pulling him out while he's still finding his feet doesn't sound like a good idea to me.>>>

I agree with this. I was a school counselor for 38 years and know how hard adjusting to a new school can be.
Missing a couple days is very different than missing three weeks in Middle School. Asking a teacher to get three weeks worth of lessons together for you is asking a lot.
In our school district this would be unlawful absence and you would be fined.

You say your 6th grader will miss school in November. How many days exactly? A week, two weeks, a month?

When I taught we had lots of children who spent their summers and most breaks in Mexico. They often came and went when it was convenient to leave and return and didnt always coincide with the school calendar.

If the family notified the school that they would be gone we could give them work and have them sign a contract. This way the district was paid for the child.

However if you don't do this your child (depending on amount of time you will be gone) will be truant. Which is illegal for you or his father to allow.

Chances are the school won't do much unless it is a high performing school and the expectations for student achievement is high and they have very few deliquecies.

We had literally many hundreds of delinquencies in our 6 thru 8th grade middle school (pop of about 1300) and not enough staff to handle.

nanabee: >>You say your 6th grader will miss school in November. How many days exactly? A week, two weeks, a month?<<

Per the thread title >>Kids missing <B>three weeks</B> of school.<<

What happens in SD is very possibly different than other parts of the country . . .

I will be surprised if the OP comes back.

OP's don't come back when people don't tell them what they want to hear.

>>OP's don't come back when people don't tell them what they want to hear.
<<

More often (as I suspect in this case) a new member assumes they will get an e-mail alert from Fodors when there are responses.

<i>OP's don't come back when people don't tell them what they want to hear.</i>

I agree that not all new OP's can figure out what they must do to read replies to their queries. The method is not obvious.

Also, I don't understand why the OP wouldn't want to benefit from some of the good advice given here.

HTtY

I think you are right about some posters. They have expectations from other experiences or they are treated rudely, and they don't come back for one or both of those reasons.

But there are others who have IDEAS and are unhappy when they receive information that contradicts or opposes those ideas.

This poster stuck around until people told her that taking a sixth grader out of his very first school was a bad idea, that no school system is obliged to accommodate her travel plans, that some school systems have significant reasons to oppose her plans and that she probably can't take that kid (and maybe even the kids who live with her) out of the country without her husband/partner's acquiescence. Since this wasn't what she wanted to hear, why would she stick around? Some people would rather find it out at the airline desk at LAX or at AUS immigration on arrival.

All we can do is tell them what we know or believe.

One thing I always stress with my students was, "If you are not prepared to accept any answer, then don't ask the question."

This same kind of thing was going on in one that I linked to. The OP(new term for me, but I get it) did come back, but said she was away for awhile. She was very surprised at how many responses were received, over a hundred.

But it's true. There's no way for you to know you have responses unless you come back and check... Sounds like she had her plate full or even forgot she posted. It would be a good option for this site to ask when posting if they want to get notifications to alert them to come back.

Ackislander: >>This poster stuck around until people told her that taking a sixth grader out of his very first school was a bad idea, . . . Since this wasn't what she wanted to hear, why would she stick around?<<

I'm not sure what you are saying. The OP may or may not have seen <i>any</i> responses since she never posted again -- the OP was her one and only ever post on Fodors.

The post that I linked above, the OP left for awhile and when she came back there were over a hundred posts... Her reaction is the same point I'm trying to make now... This person was not asking advice on whether or not she should take the trip... There are lots of responses on here telling her she shouldn't go and what a horrible person she would be if she doors and other issues...

She was asking ONLY what she should tell the school. I'm included in the above comment...i misunderstood at first... But if it's just going to be a free for all no matter what the question poses, I'd only assume that would be unproductive and unintelligent. This forum is not meant for everyone to just let loose on what they think the poster should hear...