Teacher peas--is this a thing?

That's going to be a district by district thing. Our district has no school this week at all (no conferences, either).

Our local schools were off Election week, because it was also teacher convention time..

My kids are now in college, but they always had the entire week of Thanksgiving off.

Public schools were open Mon/Tues this week. My DS's (private) school "earned" 2 days off due to a fundraiser/raffle, meeting that goal was an award. My DD is in college, and her university was supposed to be off WEd, Thurs, Friday. However, Univ of MD has had a rough semester. A student jumped from the top of the football stadium and apparently there were a lot of witnesses, and mental health services were slammed already. Also having a large population of Jewish students, and being close to DC, there has been a lot of activity (marches, protests etc) concerning Israel & Palestine. last week, UMD decided to give them the whole week off. (Well, technically classes were online on Monday, but cancelled on Tues).

They can encourage it all they want but the student would still be marked as absent if it is an official school day on the district calendar.

Like many above our district has the whole week off. In the district I used to teach in, we only had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off. But we had a whole week off in February around the presidents birthday holiday. The district we are in only has a 4-day weekend in February instead of a whole week off.

Not a teacher but we only get Wednesday through Friday off here. When I was growing up we only had Thursday and Friday off, until I was in college. Conferences are in October.

My DS (magnet) middle/high school sometimes does "day of service days" on the day before Winter vacation and on the last day of school, it's a school day but they spend it cleaning and doing other stuff instead of classes, probably because so many kids miss those two days.

As long as I can remember my kids were out this whole week.  From elementary through high school.  If I can remember myself I feel like we were out of school all week as well, but not 100% sure, you know way back in the stone age.

I’ve always had the whole week off—both in Texas and here in California.

I would imagine, that if we did have school this week, many students would miss. Many families travel for Thanksgiving. So, as a teacher, I would not plan ANY first instruction that I knew a large number of kids would miss. So I would do review, busy work and “fluff”. So—yeah—if my students were old enough—I wouldn’t care if they came or not. I don’t know if I would go so far as to tell them not to come—but I wouldn’t be sad if they didn’t.

Most middle and high schoolers can take care of themselves. Elementary—sure—that would be harder to deal with. 

Also—most districts have gone to having the whole week off because of the high number of absences. Districts lose BIG ADA money. They figure it’s better to go later in the summer (when they will get higher attendance rates) than Thanksgiving week (when so many kids are out).

Just looked at my CSU I graduated from and it is still Thursday and Friday off. They attend M-W.

I’ve had parents ask me about if they needed to come in the day(s) before break. For example, we have our class Christmas party on a Thursday. Friday is a half day, and we usually attend Mass. Parents ask me every year if they’ll miss anything if they don’t come. No, they’re not going to miss anything. It’s the day before break, kids are out, and I’m not about to introduce a new topic under those conditions. It’s all review, and I don’t want any papers to grade. Do I tell my kids not to come? Am I honest when I’m asked if they’re going to miss stuff? Yes, some review but nothing critical.

This is the first year we’ve had the two days before Thanksgiving off for conferences. (Ridiculously late if you ask me but that’s a different topic.) I abhor teaching on these two days. With a two day week, we don’t have a reading, spelling, or grammar unit. It seems small to some but those are grounding for our weekly schedule. Off schedule, impending vacation, and holiday excitement makes these two days so rough to teach. It’s all review and games (educational ones!) to keep them busy and hopefully engaged.

I wish I could tell the parents to just keep their kids home. Yes, it’s an absence. I’m not at a public school so it matters less unfortunately. We don’t have excused vs unexcused absences. If they decide to keep their child at home, it’s one less squirrelly third grader I need to worry about on a day we can’t get much done on anyway.