<p>At our kids school, college visits are also considered legal absences. But come to think of it, almost everything is considered legal as long as it’s arranged before hand. My kids have taken off for family vacations with no problem. I think for senior year, D1 had 10 or 12 days off for various reasons. It’s really just more work on teachers because they need to reschedule tests and give out assignments early. I imagine it’s easier at private schools with fewer students.</p>
<p>Vacations of any kind (family or otherwise) are not legal absences for our students (private school). Of course, we get two weeks at spring break and so there is no real reason to go early or stay late. We are taking younger D out of school for family weekend at son’s college first weekend in October and while most teachers are understanding, they do not have to allow her to make up work (but they will). Point is, the really really frown on vacation during school year. Something about your priorities, blah blah blah. 
!!</p>
<p>Our school will allow 2 days of excused abscences jr/sr year but the office has to be notified two weeks in advance and you have to return with documentation (on the college letterhead) that you were there for an official visit/tour on that particular day/time…a pain in the neck. We didn’t do a lot of school day touring so just took the unexcused abscence.</p>
<p>Yes, blah, blah, blah.:)</p>
<p>Pack… that sounds extreme to have a letter on school letterhead. It’s already intimidating enough to visit some of these schools. To have to ask for special treatment on any level would have just about killed my kid. :-)</p>
<p>However, I do rather like the before-mentioned pro and con list required by the teacher. I am sure it doesn’t have to be too detailed and it’s not a grammar session. It’s something I can see parents wanting done that they don’t have a chance in baloogaville of getting them to do without penalty of grounding or something. Still, it’s a very good idea to do almost immediately when the visit is still very fresh. Even if a kid changes his mind, he can look back at the list and see if the concerns were really worth concern.</p>
<p>Our school does not have a formal policy but does have a form the kids take to their teachers to sign off if they are taking days off for college trips. Realistically any request from parents to pull the kids from school is “excused.” Fortunately the Thursday afternoon and Friday after exam week the kids are “off” and with a trimester system it allowed for 3 trips junior year without actually missing any school. Between the trimester breaks and long holidays it was fairly easy to schedule visits as needed. The school schedule is posted for the year so it just takes alittle planning. Finally, at the end of sophomore year there is a parent meeting for soon to be juniors and the guidance office basically tells parents that junior year is a great year for college trips and I agree. There is just too much “stuff” happening with the seniors to get a bunch of trips in. For S1 and S2 we had one last trip in october of senior year and then it was done. We did not do any “summer” trips with either son.</p>
<p>At my former district, athletes had no problem getting time to go on visits. They were sponsored by the coaches who put them on the list as attending a school elated activity, since it had to do with athletics. Unfair to other students who were not athletes. We played the approved absences game since DD did not want to lose her final exam exemptions which were tied to numbers of absences. Since going to the doctor if you attended school at ALL on a day was not considered against exemption count, DD went to school on Thursday morning for 10 minutes, we left for the doctor’s office and picked up contacs, etc., and obtained the doctor’s note that only said she had been there, not the reason. Then on to the airport. She was out on Friday, but with three days allowed, we were able to travel three weekends.</p>
<p>The reason they don’t allow that much time is because it costs them money. In TX, the district receives money for each day a student attends. If they are absent, then they lose that money. The only way this will change is if the State Legislature allows for these days to not be counted as absences.</p>
<p>Oh yes, all of the problems above. Rural HS, almost no one even considers going out of state. Our spring break is before acceptances arrive. 2 days allowed. Some of the schools had scholarship competitions/interviews/etc. during the school week. 2 days is not nearly enough for kids attending those or several accepted student days/events, especially when most of a day is spent on travel.</p>
<p>It was all two years ago and still raises my blood pressure. I even appealed to the school board. The local yahoo told me, “You should do what we did for our kids. Visit in the summer.” Yeah, that would work for the scholarship interview in April! ARGG.</p>
<p>scheduling college visits was incredibly tough as our oldest competed in 4 sports junior year and 3 sports senior year. she ended up visiting her chosen school in spring of senior year and another top contender in the spring as well. she was able to squeeze in some one day visits a few times throughout the school year. it was really difficult. the good news to share though is that most schools do give until May 1 to make a decision, so there is nothing wrong with making a visit in the spring of senior year.</p>
<p>with our younger 2, we’ve been trying to do some drive through visits during the last 2 summers when possible. it at least gives them a feel for the climate, city, campus, etc.<br>
not a lot of time to even do that it seems as we have summer sport conflicts too.</p>
<p>Our school allowed up to a week of absence when students were traveling (every year). Class work still had to be fit in, but it was workable.</p>
<p>If you REALLY want to go and you can’t work it any other way, then go, but jeez, suck it up and take the punishment. Most teachers would likely let the kids take a test early if you explain. If there’s a daily grade, one or two zero’s won’t kill a good average.</p>
<p>If you lie and cheat (ie phony doctor’s note) don’t be surprised when your kids mimic that behavior later. These are the kinds of important decisions adults make all the time, so don’t you want to model good behavior instead of teaching them to cheat?</p>
<p>You DID have the spring break of junior year, 2-3 months of summer and odd 3 day weekends. Seems like plenty of time for reasonable college research to me.</p>
<p>We visited colleges during winter (Feb) and spring (April) break JUNIOR year. That works pretty well since most colleges have their spring break in March and don’t take a Feb. break, though we did screw up and visited Brandeis the day before Passover and the campus was pretty empty. We are also planning to visit some colleges the first week of September when we haven’t gone back to school yet, but most colleges are already in session. It’s one time when NYS’s annoying school schedule has worked in our favor. :)</p>
<p>mathson visited several schools in April senior year (not during spring break) and just told the school what he was up to. It wasn’t a problem.</p>
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<p>Many high schools don’t start until after Labor Day (union vote in our neck of the woods), and run through the third week of June. Making up work “afterwards” means going thru July? Huh?</p>
<p>And, yes, as Lalum pointed out, students MUST attend school for 180 days (in Calif) under state law.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, no one is suggesting extending the school year. Completing work that is missed is done “later” when kids are sick, at an away football game, etc.</p>
<p>Nor is anyone suggesting shortening the school year–180 day requirements are common and refer to the school being open, not an individual child attending 180 days.</p>
<p>I think we all agree junior year Spring break visits are helpful; I think it would be wise for guidance departments to point htis out to the parents who are not going htrough the process for the first time.</p>
<p>High school seniors and juniors should be given 10 days of “personal leave” each year, to be used for any purpose they wish. </p>
<p>It would be good preparation for real life.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I met the wife of the Governor of the US Virgin Islands, and she said her son’s school offered a week-long group tour various east coast colleges. Her son liked American Univ., so may very well be a student there now. She said it’s much better than back when she was in high school. She decided on Marquette Univ., based on a brochure, and was wearing her winter coat in September.</p>
<p>At our school a college visit is an excused absence. However, one must remember that even an excused absense will not prevent your child from failing a course if it results in an overall unsatisfactory performance. </p>
<p>In many states that are seat time requirements where the student must attend class in order to graduate. In NYS students must take regents exams in order to graduate from high school. The science regents have seat and lab-time requirements, if you do not have the lab time in, you cannot take the regents. Like one of the other posters mentioned, schools receive funding based on attendance. When a student is absent, the schools loose funding which can mean cuts in teaching staff, program offerings, etc.</p>
<p>While this may not be a popular concept, but you really have to plan. Like Blue, in my neck of the woods students do not return to school until September 8th. With many of the colleges starting their term in mid to late august, there is 2/3 weeks worth of visitation time that does not conflict with the school schedule. In addition there are days when the students are not in session that do not conflict with the college visitiation process (columbus day, election day, veterans day, staff development days). We used those days to do day trips and vist local schools. Some colleges are trying to be more accomodating and now offer weekend open houses and visits (we did plenty of those also).</p>
<p>We have a winter break in february and spring break in march-april. We did these roadtrips junior year and senior year daughter visited top 3 contenders and that was done.</p>
<p>For those of you who feel that your child should have more time off for college visits, how would you feel if teachers/administrators took this additional time off to take their child(ren) on college visits and as a result were not there to teach your child? There would be an uproar about your child being shortchanged, missing work because the teacher was not there.</p>
<p>At my high school they had to make school start a few minutes earlier every day and take away one of the breaks to make up for lost time in the winter due to snow days. There simply isn’t time to give free days off just because it’d be convenient.</p>
<p>What I did with my oldest son, and what I’m not doing with my youngest, is the same as what other posters have suggested, and that’s to really study the school calendar and use all those misc. days off for college visits. Also, if need be, a Friday or Monday a couple of times a year will not greatly impact anything. Once you get your list of colleges, find out when they have open house, special events for certain majors, accepted student visits/overnights and plan it out. I didn’t know to do this for my first child and it was much harder to see all the schools that sounded interesting. </p>
<p>If possible, I like for senior fall to be just about re-visits and applications and not first looks. Whatever schools my son didn’t see by November, he applied to and then after acceptance we visited.</p>
<p>My daughter attends a small independent private school and they give the Seniors a full week in October to visit colleges. Everyone takes advantage of this time, most going out of state and some visiting colleges closer to home. We found it invaluable this past fall and feel very lucky that we are at a school that makes this a priority.</p>