Sick days - how do you deal with them in terms of counting time?

[Joan in GE]

My dd is the type who counts the hours she studies...and has realized that some of her friends in school are occasionally out of school due to being ill.

 

So of course she asked me - "don't I get sick days?"

 

At first I thought - why not - but we have a lot to cover so I don't want to be too lax. And now that we're doing high school...and counting hours for credits I have questions...(Ds3 always did more hours than necessary so this was never an issue)...

 

Thinking about public school...if a child misses school, s/he will still have to make up the work and take the test...So even though they are not in school, at some point in the future, they'll then have to work harder and do the work anyway...

 

Whereas I think dd didn't realize this, nor did I...

 

For the courses where finishing the book is what gets the credit (like math)...it is easy to see that more has to be done...

 

But for the courses where you do as much as you can and just count the hours - how do any of you deal with 'sick days'?

 

Thanks!

Joan

[Gwen in VA]

The work needs to get done.

 

We don't count it as done until it's done, regardless of if a child is sick or misses work due to a major competition or whatever.....

[TammyS]

I don't really like the idea of counting hours because I think it distracts from mastery and doesn't encourage good work habits. I think you should just layout what needs to be completed (if necessary, look at other courses syllabi online to see what they include for a credit, to get an idea of how much is enough). A child who moves quickly can get the benefit of finishing in less hours than originally thought. A child who moves slowly will have the natural consequence of needing to put in more hours.

 

As far as "sick days" go, you might want to explain to your daughter that it's important to work while you can, because if you take a "sick day" every time you get a sniffle you will have none available for when you really get sick.

[Candid]

I'd talk to her about the whole school catch up idea. Do a Socratic discussion on it: "What do you think happens when a student misses work in a public school?"

[regentrude]

When my kids are sick, they do not do any school. Too sick for school means they are in bed - too sick for anything but sleep and rest.

So, no school work gets done, no school work gets counted. Neither for counting hours, nor for advancing towards mastery.

 

Now, there will be days when DD is not feeling well - on those days, I let her take it a bit easier. Hard to concentrate on the hardest stuff if you have cramps. Again, only work that happens gets counted.

[Calendula]

Not exactly what you were asking, but you might explain to her that sometimes p.s. kids take a sick day not because they are too sick to do any school work, but so as to not spread their germs around. Obviously not necessary at home.

[SailorMom]

I think once the kid knows that if they are sick, they have to work twice as hard to catch up, sick days aren't generally abused :)

We take days off for illnesses and vacations, but the work always has to get done - before, during, or after.

As for counting hours - my ds doesn't pay attention to it, but I do (I use Home School Tracker and it has a spot for keeping track of it), so when I enter the completed assignment, I enter the time spent on it - whether it was done on the right day or not.

[elegantlion]

My ds is rarely sick. When he's really sick, it's go lie on the couch and watch a movie or go back to bed time. When it's general blah sickness, we push through some easier subjects.

 

Generally, we just pick up where we left off. My schedule is lined up so we can be at different places in each subject and be okay. I also have built in about two weeks of flex time in each subject. We take a break every 6 weeks and I adjust our schedule as needed then. Once I started doing that, instead of waiting until the last few weeks to figure it out, it was much easier to make up for sick days or those really bad days.

 

We have to count hours for the state, and even at the 8th grade level, we exceeded their requirement in most subjects this year.

[Joan in GE]

So generally it seems that people have a certain amount of prescribed work ahead of time in all subjects that has to get done. This is hard for me in certain subjects eg in history where it is so easy to take deviations, read another book, etc, esp where the whole course is not planned out ahead of time...

 

I love the 'Socratic discussion' idea!

 

Ideally I wouldn't want to count hours but have to for the backup umbrella school...I don't know any way around that....and I'm afraid it does change the flavor of HE....

 

The idea of not passing germs is imp to discuss too - thanks!

 

Kristy, I'm going to use your example too....to help dd flesh out the concept...

 

Are all of you planning out every single day to know precisely how much work to get done over the year? And what do you do for the 'mushy' subjects - where there is not 'one' textbook - but instead many resources and it's hard to determine how long a subject will take (to then know how much needs to be made up) if you are not doing hours like Kristy?

 

Thank you all!

Joan

[SailorMom]

Are all of you planning out every single day to know precisely how much work to get done over the year? And what do you do for the 'mushy' subjects - where there is not 'one' textbook - but instead many resources and it's hard to determine how long a subject will take (to then know how much needs to be made up) if you are not doing hours like Kristy?

 

Thank you all!

Joan

 

I plan out every day in each subject - but I have them planned separately, and not planned by date. I plan each subject in 5 day chunks - just numbering the days 1-5. So - we could get a day behind in math because DS needs review, but we'd still be right on target in other subjects. I try to leave myself 15 days of cushion to allow for sick days, doctors appointments, and teacher planning days at the PS (when my older DS is off school, my younger DS is as well).

As for cushy subjects.... I use Trisms, so that helps me stay on track, but in general we have about two weeks to spend on each era in history. So - whatever we need to get done, we have to find a way to fit it in in 10 work days. If there is an extra book DS would like to pursue, he has to fit it in as homework/extra credit.

[Joan in GE]

I plan out every day in each subject - but I have them planned separately, and not planned by date. I plan each subject in 5 day chunks - just numbering the days 1-5. So - we could get a day behind in math because DS needs review, but we'd still be right on target in other subjects.

 

This was easy for me to do when we had a TE that gave the problems for each day...but the math books we're using at this stage don't have this and so I am really lost about how much to assign...And ds3 didn't use these books either....plus dd seems a bit slower to do problems...How did you know how to break up the work?

 

I try to leave myself 15 days of cushion to allow for sick days, doctors appointments, and teacher planning days at the PS (when my older DS is off school, my younger DS is as well).

As for cushy subjects.... I use Trisms, so that helps me stay on track, but in general we have about two weeks to spend on each era in history. So - whatever we need to get done, we have to find a way to fit it in in 10 work days. If there is an extra book DS would like to pursue, he has to fit it in as homework/extra credit.

 

I really like the 'cushion' idea...

 

So you give extra credit for reading extra books? (new concept for me...)

 

Thanks!

Joan

[goldberry]

I do think there is a short end dealt to homeschoolers in this area. For example, when DD was in public school 4th grade, when she was sick she would have one or two papers sent home to complete (obviously only the most important ones).

 

When we did online public school in 5th grade, they let her be "late" if she was sick, but she had to make up every single assignment. I didn't think that was fair. We keep a regular 36 week schedule. So if she is down a week with the flu, am I going to add a whole week on at the end?

 

So when she is sick, I do tend to skip or adjust some of the assignments so she can catch up. This will be our first year counting hours. I dont' really care about hours, but have to count them for credit purposes. So if she only does one assignment in 2 hours because of being sick, then I'm still counting two hours. I am absolutely comfortable with that having seen the reality of what happens at school. Fire drill? Pep rally? Someone throws up in the classroom and everyone evacuates? Sometimes there is little accomplished due to circumstances, but no one is docking hours.

 

I still continue to take the mastery seriously and times we are a little "lax" are the exception rather than the rule. We have never NOT completed a cirriculum we planned to finish.

Edited August 2, 2012 by coloradoperkins

[regentrude]

Are all of you planning out every single day to know precisely how much work to get done over the year? And what do you do for the 'mushy' subjects - where there is not 'one' textbook - but instead many resources and it's hard to determine how long a subject will take (to then know how much needs to be made up) if you are not doing hours like Kristy?

 

For the "mushy" subjects where we have no fixed textbook or curriculum, I have a list of things that could possibly get done. For us, these subjects are English and history. We never finish everything that is on the reading list, and we always find something to add that was not planned in advance.

I simply count hours, and we work until I think enough work has been completed. If I did not count hours, I would look at what they are doing in public school (and realize that our plans exceed this so far that we can have plenty of sick days and still cover more material.)

 

ETA: Since you asked another poster ab out math: here's what we do. I do not assign a certain amount that has to be completed, because it is virtually impossible to know in advance which chapters and problems will be difficult and more time consuming for my students. We work through the book, until it is done - however long that takes. This could mean working over the summer to finish.

Edited August 3, 2012 by regentrude

[Joan in GE]

I do think there is a short end dealt to homeschoolers in this area......We keep a regular 36 week schedule. So if she is down a week with the flu, am I going to add a whole week on at the end?

 

For the states where you have to log in 180 days -this would be difficult if you were then making up hours here and there on the weekends, evening, etc for various subjects....At least with some umbrella schools it is by the hours and not the calendar days...

 

Fire drill? Pep rally? Someone throws up in the classroom and everyone evacuates? Sometimes there is little accomplished due to circumstances, but no one is docking hours.

 

Exactly!

 

For the "mushy" subjects where we have no fixed textbook or curriculum, I have a list of things that could possibly get done. For us, these subjects are English and history. We never finish everything that is on the reading list, and we always find something to add that was not planned in advance.

I simply count hours, and we work until I think enough work has been completed. If I did not count hours, I would look at what they are doing in public school (and realize that our plans exceed this so far that we can have plenty of sick days and still cover more material.)

 

Ok, I see what you are doing.....that's pretty much what I did with ds3. Since he never once brought up sick time - I never thought about the problem before....Now I see that for high school, it is important to discuss this before the fact with dd, so she's not thinking one way when she gets sick and then gets a surprise.......forgot to yesterday...

 

ETA: Since you asked another poster ab out math: here's what we do. I do not assign a certain amount that has to be completed, because it is virtually impossible to know in advance which chapters and problems will be difficult and more time consuming for my students. We work through the book, until it is done - however long that takes. This could mean working over the summer to finish.

 

Thank you for the reassurance about math - regentrude! This is what has happened with dd - some topics go really fast and others take 'forever'....

 

Now I know why it is so much easier to have TE's that give the problems and days - my son was SOOO happy to have it all planned out ahead of time, instead of waiting for me to decide...and then it is easier to do the 1-5 day schedule ahead of time...and calculate hours, etc...

 

Thanks ladies,

Joan

[Finnella]

I do think there is a short end dealt to homeschoolers in this area. . . .

 

So if she is down a week with the flu, am I going to add a whole week on at the end?

 

. . . Fire drill? Pep rally? Someone throws up in the classroom and everyone evacuates? Sometimes there is little accomplished due to circumstances, but no one is docking hours.

 

I've only been homeschooling for a year and a half, and I've been struggling with this. NC requires 180 days of schooling. Last year, we had two solid weeks of illness followed almost immediately by the death of my mother-in-law. (We had some really nasty bugs last January; DS and I got two of them back to back.)

 

My DS did have to make up work; I didn't just flush that much school work. But I did have to admit my DH was right about how the time should be made up. Comparing our homeschool schedule to what my older DS was doing in public high school, we still had far more productive hours.

 

I'm going to make sure work gets done this year, but I'm not going to stress about the attendance as much. Or high school credit hours.

[razorbackmama]

I actually do both.:D

 

Here in CO we are required to have 172 days of school, period. I count sick days for those, since they would be counted if they went to public school.

 

But when it comes to actually considering their work for the year DONE, I count the work that they actually DO.

[tarahillmom]

Here in SC. You are required 180 days, and of those 10 can be sick days. But I do allow for sick days, and I give each child two mental health days for the school year. This way if they aren't truly sick, but just mentally out of it, I am not wasting my time. Plus there are always those days you didn't plan on you being under the weather or at your wits end.

[ereks mom]

I do think there is a short end dealt to homeschoolers in this area.

 

...I am absolutely comfortable with that having seen the reality of what happens at school. Fire drill? Pep rally? Someone throws up in the classroom and everyone evacuates? Sometimes there is little accomplished due to circumstances, but no one is docking hours.

 

I agree that homeschoolers get short shrift. PS students are allowed a certain number of absences (excused or not), but homeschoolers still have to complete the designated number of days/hours. Yes, PS students are supposed to make up the work, but IME that's not a lot of work.

[Ellie]

I've only been homeschooling for a year and a half, and I've been struggling with this. NC requires 180 days of schooling. Last year, we had two solid weeks of illness followed almost immediately by the death of my mother-in-law. (We had some really nasty bugs last January; DS and I got two of them back to back.)

Actually, NC does NOT require 180 days. Your school year is supposed to be "at least nine calendar months, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations." And since the law doesn't require you to submit attendance forms (regardless of what DPS might think), it's kind of a silly "requirement." :)

[Holly IN]

Here in Indiana we do not count hours but days. If they do 10 min of school it is a full school day (2 hour delay or half day of school here in Indiana is a full school day). My kids do schoolwork even if they are sick. However in my oldest case, if his migraine comes he doesn't do school or classes....he stays home. For ex: He has an aura migraine today. This is his worst by far of the others he had. He is missing his online class today due to this problem. Otherwise if he is sick with something else he works on his schoolwork. This is HIS choice. All of my kids are that way. I tell them they can take day off and stuff will get moved and may have to do them on a weekend. They do not want that or to get behind.

 

In my school district, you have to make up all work even with excused absence. It doesn't mean you attend another day but just do the work they have parent pick up if absent more than one day.

 

Holly

[Joan in GE]

Thank you ladies - for the additional responses. I'd traveled and then somehow missed that more people responded...

 

Interesting variations depending on the state....

 

It's made me think about other school situations - like university - ultimately we want them to be prepared....

 

When my older sons have been absent - they've gotten copies of the notes from other students, but for at least one of one (:001_smile:) of my sons' (or should it be son's?) courses, the notes were all online....and he didn't like the prof...so didn't go to class - just studied with the books and notes and did fine....Thinking about that makes me think of helping dd realize that it is the material to be learned which is most important, and give her the examples from the hive and her big brothers...

 

Thanks all for the discussion!

Joan