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The Trials of Mid-Year Vacations

Lesly Virgen-Mariscal

Students are about to go on Spring Break. But a lot of students go on family vacations throughout the year. Lesly Virgen-Mariscal of Reno Youth Radio recently went on vacation and it had her wondering what kind of burden that puts on her teachers.

I had a great time visiting my family in Mexico recently. It was for a family party where my grandparents celebrated their 50 year anniversary and renewed their vows.

I spent time in my hometown, a small pueblo in the Central Western Region of Jalisco. There were the busy streets of Guadalajara and the calm of the Pacific Ocean in Puerto Vallarta.   

Even though it was only a week, it felt like an entire month. When I got back to the U.S., I had a lot of catching up to do in school. My teacher at the Academy of Arts Careers and Technology, Robert Zorn deals with this kind of thing on a daily basis. He says it’s a problem.

"Where I would like to see less of that is on family vacations. Obviously taking family vacations really close to the end of a quarter or something like that is not good planning on the families part and it would be nice if they put more thought into that because that really causes problems sometimes, but we deal with that as it comes.”

He says that is not the student’s fault, so teachers have to find a way to cater to that one student.

One of my other teachers, Ms. Fralick has a system for helping students get their grades back up.

“We spend extra time before, during or after school getting caught up. I have an absent missing work system. So I think it is very organized so students know what to do.”

Credit Lesly Virgen-Mariscal
Pacific Ocean in Puerto Vallarta

Administrators like Mary Frey says that teachers are trying new things with technology and intercession periods as methods to catch up students like me who are absent.

“We have a lot of teachers who are filming their lessons and kids, as long as they have internet connection, can watch the lesson. I think it’s going to happen more and more where teachers upload the video of them teaching so kids don’t miss that class instruction. We also have intercession periods during breaks where students can work with teachers on site. ”

Even with all the help from teachers it was still really hard for me to get caught up. Next time my parents want me to go on vacation during the school year, I might tell them no . . . but probably not.

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