“Significant group” is probably overstating.
I’m sure they are aware; this is likely not their first rodeo.
In addition to having been filed under “first world problems,” it should also be cross-referenced under “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Few decisions make everybody happy.
My institution asks us not to cancel the day before a break. I don’t think i ever have in 20 years. But I would if I needed to for personal reasons. One thing that often happens is that students start telling us they will not be there. And we get down to three students in attendance.
OP, could your daughter go standby without paying so much more? Not ideal but??
Wouldn’t full disclosure by the professor solve this problem? Provide the class schedule, and announce that in the last 3 years (Or whatever timeperiod), class has (or has not) been cancelled that day due to low attendance. It is currently scheduled to occur, but that is the history. Take your chances and act accordingly.
The biggest thing for me is if I KNEW the kid wasn’t going to have class on Wed I could have gotten a CHEAPER flight
My son is at Bama and has not been home for Thanksgiving since freshman year; it is just too short a time period for an expensive flight. I offered to bring him home this year despite the cost, but the travel time to and from the airport, layovers, etc. can make for a long day, so he chose not to come home.
I think the main thing to take away here is rethinking a college that is a plane flight away as being reasonable for travel time. I have seen that comment here a number of times that it is “just a short flight” away, but there is far more that goes into it than just the actual flight.
My daughter’s school is almost exactly 500 miles from our house. So it’s drivable, but since it’s up the East Coast corridor, it’s tough! Driving on the day before Thanksgiving is a nightmare. I’m kind of glad she’s studying abroad this semester! Only one more year after this to deal with.
Thanks @ProfessorMom1 , so I’m not completely off base thinking that this is something that could be addressed at the school level. And standby wasn’t something I had thought of before this thread, DD declined that but thanks (obviously she’s not THAT upset this year). Annoyed, like I am.
But most importantly thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and perspectives. I’ve gained some new insights and a couple of practical suggestions to deal with this in future years, as I’m sure it will continue.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and safe travels if you or your kids are traveling…sounds like many will have weather related travel issues this year.
I wonder if that TA is one of the students of a cc parent who tells them that they’re leaving early for break (or any other reason)! ;))
I think the number of students who would be annoyed if a class was cancelled is VERY small. Especially if it is communicated well ahead of time.
If a Tuesday teacher cancels, why not the Monday teacher? Why shouldn’t the students all get the full week, and then why not the Friday before? No one goes to class on Fridays anyway, so everyone would get nice jump on the week off!
Many quarter schools are in finals this week and next. There are no cancellations happening.
We never thought about Thanksgiving week when picking schools, and both kids ended up at schools with short breaks. One had a 4 day (Sat-Tues, including Columbus day) fall break, the other had NO break at all, no holidays off. Why? because most students at her school are instate but many live 7-9 hours away on ranches and farms, and no flights. No one went home for long weekends, so they didn’t schedule them. School found it better to go 15 straight weeks, with only the 4 days off for Thanksgiving.
OP: "First world problem " or not, you are entitled to feel the way you feel and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with/see your child over a holiday. This has happened every year to my kid too and we were fortunate that due to DH’s frequent flyer status, we were able to change the flights last minute with no extra fee. I too would have been frustrated at missing even one day with my kid over Thanksgiving. I am sorry that you won’t get the extra day or day and a half with your child and please do not feel bad about posting your frustrations here. While I am sure you will be pleased to see your child over Thanksgiving, I completely understand you wanting more time and please do not let anyone make you feel like you are wrong for feeling that way. You have nothing to defend and nothing for which to apologize.
It reminded me of a time a few years ago when I lost a very young, very close family member to cancer. This family member left behind a husband and young child. I recall that for some many months afterwards, I experienced survivor’s guilt and felt extremely guilty complaining about any silly minor sickness or issue that I had. I had to come to terms with the fact that it is ok for me to discuss and complain about my ups and downs and it does not for a minute diminish the death of my loved one. It took some counseling for me to be able not to feel guilty enjoying raising my kids just because my loved one won’t be able to raise hers. As others have said, there will always be others who have it worse than you do, but in my humble opinion, you do not lose the right to feel what you feel because of this fact. Heck, I recently posted about wanting to buy a stupid burr grinder, which on the grand scheme of things is not very important and pales in comparison to others’ issues.
I think that as Blossom said, it’s always good to have perspective and I believe that you do. Many people post about topics/issues that one could argue are “first world problems” and there is nothing wrong with doing so and with expressing one’s feelings about these “first world problems”. So, I hope you do not feel discouraged or beat up having posted this thread. I just wanted you to know that I hear you and understand and hope that you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
My D2 is a grad student at a school now with a whole week off at Thanksgiving. It feels so luxurious to us after her undergrad college that had classes through Wednesday! OP, maybe your kid will go to grad school eventually and you will get lucky this way. 
Next Wednesday’s afternoon classes cancelled for my freshman college kid earlier this week, so I called Delta and for $105, I changed to an earlier flight. <:-P
@intparent My kids grad schools went through the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving so YMMV.
Hope you enjoy the week with your D!
One kid’s undergrad school gave students the entire week off. It was VERY nice. Other kid’s undergrad school has Weds. class and she said some professors were marking kids down for missing class. PIA, if you want your kid home for the holiday.
My kid had the full week off. There were some who wished that previous Friday was off…
I wouldn’t have no expectation that the professor would think about every potential travel consequence of canceling class. It’s college. Not the professor’s role to worry about this.
Any action of any kind by any person can cause problems for some people OR can be welcomed by other people. It would be paralyzing for the person making the decision to think of every possible sequela.
Another professor here. My school has us scheduled for classes Monday and Tuesday. Next Tuesday I have cancelled the class because it’s a Lab section and half the class has Lab on Tuesday and the other half has Lab on Thursday. I don’t want the sections to be out of sync, because that is difficult for myself, the students, and the lab support staff. I didn’t tell them I was cancelling until someone asked a couple of weeks ago, because if something happened and we were out-of-sync before now then I would try to use Tuesday to get us back on track.
I am well aware that many of my students have to take a bus or train home because they can’t afford to fly like some little snowflakes we won’t mention.
Sorry for being irresponsible and rude. Sad!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, D has to work Wednesday, and S will be spending Thanksgiving in Texas, hopefully with his BF’s family, since it’s too much to get him home for that short of a time.
The fall semester calendar at your college does not equalize days of the week?
For example, a college may start fall semester instruction on a Thursday, end it on a Monday, so that an equal number of each weekday is in the fall semester, accounting for one holiday on each of Monday (Labor Day), Thursday (Thanksgiving Day), and Friday (day after Thanksgiving Day).
Even train tickets get sold out around the holidays. My kids take Amtrak to their dad’s, and I’ve learned to book early.
Nice to hear that your school gives Wed off, the schools that don’t are the schools where this problem is most frustrating). My D2’s school had classes through noon Wed. Very rigorous school, and my kid was really worried about missing any class. It was too late on Wed to get to the airport and catch a flight home for students a few time zones away the same day — it was either skip class, fly on Thanksgiving, or don’t go home. I think when it started out as a more regional school, that worked better. But now that it is (and bills itself as) a school that draws students from all over the country, they finally ditched the Wed classes this year.