I am entirely in agreement with this approach. Do not lie. Just handle the situation in the way that will cause the least trouble.
Go on the trip: Yes.
Lie about it to the school: No.
It is no big deal to let the school know ahead of time that your daughter will be missing a day due to the family being out of town.
Why are you having such a hard time dealing with this one absence in your daughter’s class? It’s just one day. Kids miss plenty of days of school for family reasons.
Second grade teacher here.
Who gives a crap about whether the absence is excused or unexcused? This will only become an issue if she misses like 20 days of school over the course of the year: at that point, when the school is deciding whether to call the truancy officers, they’ll check to see how many of those absences are excused. Or if this were in 3rd grade or up (invoking No Child Left Behind), AND you were taking her out of school on the day of a state-mandated end-of-grade-test, then you could buying trouble. Or if you were taking her out for an entire week right before the tests, that wouldn’t be smiled on. But this is one day: the fact that the school doesn’t excuse the absence shouldn’t worry you in the slightest.
Daniel
Don’t lie, just tell them you’re going on a family trip or will be out of town. If they question your daughter, have her tell them to call you. My parents took us out of town all the time for family trips and it was never a big deal. The school doesn’t want to deal with an irate parent by denying an absence’s excuse.
Well, given all the input here, I will send a note to school with her next Friday saying “mudgirl will not be in school on Monday because the family is going out of town” and leave it at that.
The input LHOD had is very relevant. The excused absence vs unexcused absence doesn’t really make any difference unless she racks up a lot of them, which she’s certainly not going to do.
As a teacher, I am concerned that the parents are supporting the child learning. (It would be good if they brought them up well too.)
So tell the school that you are going on a trip (making it clear that it is your responsibility).
Help your child catch up the work missed (it doesn’t sound like that will be any problem).
And tell your child not to lie if asked. (Why mess her up just to save money?)
When our daughter misses a day of school but isn’t sick (typically before Christmas break), we call the school and say “The Child won’t be in school today”. The note she brings to her teacher on the day she goes back says, “Please excuse The Child’s absence on Friday. Please send home any work she may have missed and she will complete it.”
Definitely no lies were told.
My daughter misses about one day a month from school–she travels to visit her mother out of state and I try and do that over a three day holiday, but sometimes that doesn’t work. So she has to miss a day of school.
First of the year I always tell the teacher she will have a few days when she is out, and leave it at that. I then send an email to him/her the week before and ask them to send homework, etc.
But I have also taken her out of school for other activities such as what you are doing. Just send a note saying she won’t be in. Not a biggie. She is now in 6th grade, top of her class, and have not ever had a problem. I do make sure it isn’t in conflict with WASL tests, etc.
Some education doesn’t occur in a classroom, and the time she spends with her mom, or in a family activity is just as important in my mind.
I agree with everyone else, just say the family will be out of town.
If pressed, tell mudgirl she should tell her teachers it was a Mental Health Day.
Be honest.
“We are taking Abe and Betty out of school on Monday so we can spend some family time with them. Please let us know their assignments so they can complete them on time.”
Have a great time, norinew!
I hope it doesn’t rain…
ETA: It just occurred to me to notice that Michaela’s school is out of session for the next two Mondays. Are Lincoln’s B’Day and President’s Day not days off in Maryland?
Usually Presidents’ Day covers both Lincoln and Washington.
Except that it is exactly their business because of required school attendance laws. Besides, if it were not the teachers’ business, then no one would go to the trouble of assigning, explaining and grading makeup work, right? 
(Insert wicked teacher laughter.)
Most teachers and school officials will be willing to work with you on something like this as long as it is infrequent and you have a reputation for being a concerned and cooperative parent.
Your child will learn to do what she sees you doing.
I used to allow my kids one “mental health day” each term. They could decide that they didn’t want to go or sometimes my wife or I would offer an outing such as you have in mind. No lying or artifice was involved. My note generally just said something like “Ben was unable to attend school yesterday with my approval.”
On the odd occasion that they invoked the “mental health day” rule it was better that they just asked for it rather than faking illness to get the day off. They both understood that it couldn’t be used to avoid work or tests.
Just write a note and say it was a family trip.
I don’t think I have ever heard a teacher say, “those asshole parents wrote me a note to tell me they took their kid out of school to have fun on a family trip.”
And if such a teacher existed, I would be far more concerned about their reaction than the unexcused absence.
For me, I wouldn’t do it. I know your daughter is “only” in second grade, but I wouldn’t want my child to think they could skip school or skip work to go do something fun. Fun can be planned around work. Not a criticism, more of an observation.
That said, since you’re already going to go, then just say “My daughter will be out of school on Monday.” Do you have to provide an explanation?
Yeah, here in MD, they combine the two, and it is on a Monday that she has off for those, but not on a Monday when her father is off. And I’m having major surgery the end of the month, and won’t be recovered until Spring, so it’s got to be soon.
I do understand this POV. If mudgirl were not such a good student (not only honor roll, but never “plays sick” to get out of school, takes her school work very seriously, etc), I would probably concur. But at this point, we have to make the field trip fit into the schedule her father and I have. Like I said to kaylasdad, I’m having major surgery on the 28th, so we only have five weekend days left between now and then to get everything done we need to get done (that includes Easter shopping, since Easter is a mere three weeks post-op for me!, as well as a birthday party for one of my kids, a trip to Slinky World-like Chuck E. Cheese but better-for mudgirl for making honor roll, and final prep for surgery). Now, you may legitimately wonder why all this stuff has to be done on weekends. See, hubby works out of town. He leaves here on Monday morning (Tuesday morning on weeks he has Monday off) and doesn’t come home until Friday night. Plus, the issues I’m having surgery for are getting so serious that I’m on narcotics almost every day to deal with the pain, so doing most of this running without him is not a feasible option.
I realize this is a lot more complex than my OP painted it to be. But I didn’t see the point in clouding the issue with a lot of “soap opera” details!
What it boils down to, though, my illnesses notwithstanding, is every parent has to find their own “comfort zone”. Not to mention that, if you have a good work record, good attendance, good work habits, and could easily make up missed work from home, I don’t see a problem with taking an occasional (key word: occasional) day off work to do something fun, either. I wasn’t really comfortable lying to her teacher, but wanted to get some input on what the Dopers thought, seeing as how y’all are the smartest collective group of people I know. 
Can I put it from the teacher’s point of view?
The news that your kid has a holiday in school time will instantly travel around her classmates when she returns. (That’s what they do best. 
)
Some kids will tell their parents, demanding time off ‘because mudgirl got a free day’. Then some families will start taking their kids out of school for the same reason you did.
Next ( depending on either carelessness or malice) the school will learn you lied to them.
I genuinely think this will happen (I’ve certainly seen similar in my time teaching.)
So don’t lie to the school!
Anyway, good luck with everything.
Well, as I’ve said, I’ve definitely decided not to! I’m just going to say on her note (which she’ll take in a day in advance) that due to my husband’s work schedule, we had to plan an out-of-town trip for a week day, so she won’t be in school that day, but will make up any work she misses. Or I may leave out the part about her father’s schedule all together and just say we’ve got an out-of-town trip that day. At any rate, whatever I say won’t be a lie.
Good for you! Now go and have a fun family day.
Why not? I take time off work all the time to have fun. It’s called “vacation time” (if scheduled and approved in advance) and “personal time*” (if not approved in advance). The only difference in this case is, even if the daughter’s time off is scheduled in advance, she still gets dinged for it, whereas I only get dinged for it if I don’t get it approved first.
*Used to be called “sick time” but since you don’t have to be sick to use it, they eventually changed the name. 