<p>It’s a money thing- public schools get paid for each day the student attends, doesn’t get paid if they don’t. Privates get paid no matter what. Top publics will not let you make up work for more than 1-2 day sickness, if student is out for a week even if sick, someone has to contact each teacher for work during the absence. Publics don’t even give a pass for college campus visits in April. Not in Cali.</p>
<p>Family vacations are dying. With year round sports and camps/academics during summers(to get into college!) a lot of families are not playing together. Then, when the kids go to the dark side, everyone says “should have had dinner together, vacationed together”. At most jobs you can hardly depend on planning a vacation 4-6 months in advance anymore- something always comes up.</p>
<p>So for us, vacations happened when they could- didn’t seem to change the college outcomes at all, and we have lots of great adventures and memories. The Kids are well educated beyond the classroom, which as a family we value as much as classroom learning. </p>
<p>But, I understand others point here- it’s just seemed to us this family time was rushing by and if we didn’t grab when we could we would miss it.</p>