We are booked on the Triumph 12/11/2004 Western Balcony cabin Upper deck, First let me say I am a airline employee currently on lay off from UAL and now working for a commuter airline, been doing it for over 20 years, my family and I can not travel in the summer due to seniority and because of strained finances we found this sailing date to work within our hard saved budget, the problem-we currently live in South Carolina and told my 10 year old daughters elementary school we are taking her out of school the Fri before the 7 day sailing and will return to school the following monday and asked that a work package for her to do school work atleast 2 hours per day, btw we have done this many times before when we lived in Florida and Indiana, but in SC they have some new truancy laws and will consider this an UNEXCUSED absence, excused is only for illness or death in the immediate family.
Sorry this is so long, sitting here not knowing what to do as we cannot get our money back or change to another sailing date.
Any suggestions , PLEASE, we cannot hardly afford to lose our full payment we saved up for over 2 years for.

I say GO and when you return write a note saying your daughter was "Ill" on those days. Thats makes it an Excused absence and they won't be stupid enough ti say you are a liar, so problem solved. BTW have a GREAT time and dont worry about what the school thinks, since they NEED kids to stay in Business.

Sounds good to me, except one small thing, we are to honest maybe to a fault because we already gave the school a calender telling them what days off we need so they can have time to put a work package together, this is always what we have done in the past without a problem, now if we tell them she was sick they will know we are liars, unless they did not keep the calender???

We live in NC where the kids are only allowed to miss 12 days per year, excused or not doesn't matter. After 12 days, they fail regardless of whether work was made up. This is what I do.. .. ..We are sailing mid December and will be gone for 11 days. Just go! Have a great time! Let her make up the work when she gets back. They have to give her 3-4 days to get it done (for each day she was absent). . She'll have to cram for a week to get it all in but the trip is worth it!! Let her go and enjoy the time and worry about the work when you get back. As long as she doesn't have a great deal of unexcused absenses, she'll be fine. BTW, you can claim this as an "educational experience" and thus will be excused! Have her write a report or something on native experience.

Spoke to my childs principal and he said we will withdraw her from school all of the days we need her to be out and will re-enroll her upon our return, so it will not go against her attendance record, she will be required to do a report on oceanology and a report about each country we visit, sounds fair to me.

The bottom line is that your child will probably learn a lot more by traveling than sitting in class (that's the way I look at it anyway) so enjoy your trip and forget about school for a while.

The schools love to make you think that what they do is SO important. If you want to find out what really happens, drop in to observe. Or don't they let you do that? And why?

Also, why are we failing as a nation in the Sciences and Math?

Trips to other countries are INVALUABLE for educating your child. You have to use your own judgement. Many times people think that there is an A-Z curriculum that the child must "accomplish" before graduation or their son/daughter won't be successful. (And btw, define "successful". .)

The reality is, there is no way a child could learn everything there is to know--therefore "someone" chooses what they think is most important.

It would have to be a pretty arrogant principal that would fail a child whose parents made an honest effort to do the required work. I would fight that tooth and nail.

I hope you have a wonderful time, and remember to enjoy and appreciate all the facets of learning that take place on your trip--for both you AND your children.

How was this cruise?? I am thinking of taking this same one now in Dec of 2005.

Service?
Food?
cleanliness?
Excursions?
Weather?
etc.. .. .

"Tell me what they taught you
and I'll tell you what you've learned.

Tell me where you've been
and I'll tell you what you know"

--confucious