If your children attend public school, it’s often hard to get away for a vacation without either succumbing to only traveling over Christmas and the Summer (which is often the worst time to travel for many families working in particular lines of work), or pulling your children out of school for a period of time. Being absent from school, so long as your child isn’t struggling with their studies, could be an even more educational experience that the days in the classroom that they would miss. Often, if given enough notice, a teacher will prepare some work to take along during the holiday to keep their student up to speed on what is covered while they’re away.
However, it recently came to my attention that in some places, parents do not have the right to take their children out of school for travel without permission from the school, and vacation reasons are often not considered an acceptable reason for missing class. If you do not follow the school’s guidelines and head out on an adventure anyways, you could be fined and have criminal charges laid against you.
Last year a family in England was fined a hefty sum of £630 (which totalled £993 at the end of things) for taking their children out of school for a week-long vacation in Greece.
Another English family was not only given a hefty fine for taking their children to Australia during the school term, to visit family, but they were given a criminal record as well.
A father who took his children from the UK to America for their great-grandfather’s memorial service was fined and summonsed to court.
All of these cases, notice had been given, but permission from the school was not approved. There are many, many more cases such as this. Apparently a new law came into effect in September 2013 in which “Parents have no legal right to take their children out of school during term time for holidays.” I can’t help but think that the reasoning may be closely tied to the fact that schools receive funding based on attendance.
As each country, province/state and even city abides by different laws, I figured perhaps this was just a legality in the UK. Looking around, I found out that families in the United States are also obliged to follow laws that dictate the school holds the cards as to whether or not you’re allowed to travel with your children during the school year. I couldn’t find any clear cut information about whether there are laws in Canada to this effect. What I found seemed to indicate that we, the parents, hold the rights as to whether or not our children are learning through the classroom or a family adventure, but I would still follow this advice and check with your child’s school before making arrangements.
I understand that education is important, and we don’t want our children to fall behind in their studies, making it harder to catch up and stay with their peers, but aren’t there other ways to learn, and other things to learn about, than just what is covered in the classroom? To experience a new place and culture, so explore something new with all of your senses, rather than sitting in a desk listening (or not) and filling in a worksheet, isn’t that a more effective way to learn? Is there not importance in spending quality time with your family while you’re doing it?
What do you think?
Also, if anyone has a concrete answer about whether Canadian law gives parents or schools the rights over their children, please comment below and let us know!