Would you send your child to school today?

[sunnmama]

Today would have been the first day of Spring Break, but is now a snow make up day. Break will begin tomorrow, and school will resume on Monday.

With that information alone, would you send you child to school today?

[alegna]

Sure, why not?

-Angela

[ollyoxenfree]

I would lean toward not sending my child, but I would have more information than you have supplied. I would know whether there had been multiple days missed due to weather or other factors (teacher's strike, lockdowns, building problems....) or if there had been only a single day missed. I would know whether the 'make-up' day was only required due to contracts with teachers/teachers' union or school legislation for a certain number of instructional days per school year. I would know whether the teachers planned true instructional time or simply a day of review/in-class party/free time which often happens on the last day before a holiday period.

I would know if our family had planned a special event for this day. I would know whether my child wanted to go to school.

I would know my child's attendance history and whether there would be a truancy problem if s/he missed school today.

Without any of that information, it's kinda hard to make an informed decision or provide a credible opinion on the issue.

But generally, I think I'd be unhappy about the idea of a "make-up" day, especially if it's primary/elementary age.

[sunnmama]

I sent my dd. But there were only 3 kids at our bus stop this am, while there are usually about 15. So I'm second guessing my decision

I hope she enjoys a nice, quiet day!

[eepster]

With just the information you provided, yes I would. However, if I had some plans for that day off, I wouldn't change or cancel them just to send my child to school.

Since you say so few kids showed up, I suspect many families did make plans for the week. With a whole week off, I bet many decided to leave Saturday night and go some where warm (such as Disney World) or off to visit relatives. Even if they just had local plans, such as going to the zoo on Monday, I would expect few would cancel them.

[velochic]

I would have, assuming no prior plans were made. If we had plane tickets to leave on Saturday, I wouldn't change them to have dd at school.

[kittykat2481]

As long as my child hadn't already missed too much school, I probably wouldn't have sent him. It is very likely that the teacher will make today movie day or something anyway, especially since most of the kids won't even be there. They are required by the state to have a certain number of days of school, which is why they probably had to make today a school day. My sister is 4 and in pre-k, and due to the record snow here in Texas this winter, her school is in session in a few weeks on a Saturday for half a day. She has already missed quite a bit of school due to being sick with pneumonia, so my dad might have to send her, otherwise he probably wouldn't.

ETA: If you weren't doing anything special at home though, a movie day may be fun. When DS was on spring break I tried to do special stuff together most of the week, so I would have rather have him with me instead of watching a movie at school.

[Alyantavid]

Probably not.

We took our son out of school the day before he was out for spring break because of other plans, but we've not sent him on weeks where he's only going for 1 day before a holiday or vacation too.

[sunnmama]

I understand that some people will have travel plans. Heck, we did, too, but had to change them because dh is a teacher

And the population of our neighborhood probably makes it more likely that the families have travel plans (most of the families are from India, and travel back and forth).

Still, I was shocked when I only saw 3 kids, and I panicked a little bit! lol!

Thanks for the feedback. She'll be home soon enough, and I guess I'll find out how it went

[blizzard_babe]

Heck, she probably got lots of one-on-one attention... I'd guess it was a pretty fun day. I know when we had few students in school last year (1/2 of our village lived on the other side of an unbridged river, so while it was freezing up and uncrossable, we'd have very few students (sometimes not enough to call it an official day of school and we'd have to send everyone home)... and honestly? Those days were FUN for the students who came. Lots of individual attention from teachers, and the teachers, because of smaller class sizes, were able to do activities that get really unwieldy with 20+ students in the classroom.

On those days, if we had to call school off at 10 (we'd wait until 10 to see if any more students came across once it got light, and so any tardy students from the school side of the river got counted), the kids would groan when they announced that school was canceled. Many of the teachers would stay at school and let the kids hang out and do work (even if it couldnt' count as a day), and a lot of the kids would happily stay, just because school is kinda fun when you have a teacher nearly all to yourself.

[AmandasMom]

You are way more luckier then us. For some unknown reason, instead of taking 2 days to make up snow days, they have added on 30 minutes to the end of each day until May! So now my 4th grader doesn't get home until after 4, the middle schoolers until after 5pm. Stupid!!!

[sunnmama]

She's home, and she's glad she went. Half the kids in her class showed up. She said the activities of the day were:

1. listen to music
2. eat pudding
3. draw pictures

Whatever makes her happy!

[sunnmama]

Amandasmom, +30 min a day sounds horrible!

[ollyoxenfree]

Sounds like fun! I could have used a day like that, lol! Pudding, yum! (No doubt someone will frown, but hey, IMHO, pudding makes anything a little bit better).

[Ellien C]

I would, yes. But my school calendar includes the "make-up" snow days, so we know in advance if we can make travel plans. Our make-up days are in June not during Spring break. And you pretty well know by the end of March if they'll need the make-up days.

[kittykat2481]

Originally Posted by Ellien C

I would, yes. But my school calendar includes the "make-up" snow days, so we know in advance if we can make travel plans. Our make-up days are in June not during Spring break. And you pretty well know by the end of March if they'll need the make-up days.

They do that around here too, but because of the record snows this year, we used more days than they allotted for. It happens occasionally.

Glad she had an awesome fun day at school today! I agree, pudding sounds great!

[LynnS6]

Yes, unless I were already planning on being out of town.

[sunnmama]

Originally Posted by ollyoxenfree

Pudding, yum! (No doubt someone will frown, but hey, IMHO, pudding makes anything a little bit better).

But wait! It was educational pudding!

Turns out they'd been studying soil, and used pudding, graham crackers, gummy worms, and cookie crumbs to "build" the soil layers. Pudding represented clay. Very tasty clay!

[ollyoxenfree]

Originally Posted by sunnmama

But wait! It was educational pudding!

Turns out they'd been studying soil, and used pudding, graham crackers, gummy worms, and cookie crumbs to "build" the soil layers. Pudding represented clay. Very tasty clay!

Educational pudding! That is brilliant!!

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by sunnmama

But wait! It was educational pudding!

Turns out they'd been studying soil, and used pudding, graham crackers, gummy worms, and cookie crumbs to "build" the soil layers. Pudding represented clay. Very tasty clay!

YUM. Or, I mean, um... how educational!