Deployment-Related School Attendance Policies

By Suzanne on June 3, 2011

Military families often face difficult decisions when it comes to their children . . . moving during the school year v. during the summer; moving to a new area where schools don’t offer the same programs available in previous ones; ensuring students have the correct credits to satisfy graduation requirements if they move during high school.   Deployments can bring stress to a whole new level.

Consider this example . . . your spouse is coming home for his/her mid-tour leave and your family wants to enjoy a “getaway” for some precious bonding time.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  So what’s the issue?  This trip falls during your child’s school-year and s/he’ll have to miss school.  How will the school’s attendance policy handle this scenario?  In the past, parents often faced having unexcused absences on their son or daughter’s school record. 

Recent developments, however, are setting the stage for more accommodating policies when it comes to military families in situations like this.  Visit the SchoolQuest.org Library and read "Deployment Related School Attendance Policies" to learn more about guidance and policies which have proven successful in addressing these issues in schools and districts around the country.

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Karl Hoover on June 08, 2011 wrote:

Greetings.  I am a fairly new School Liaison stationed at Joint Base McGuire/Dix/Lakehurst.  We have lots of families that deploy here.  My question is, are there any letters or specifics that go to school districts to request time off?  or is that based on whatever the school districts needs as proof for the time off?  Thanks in advance.

Suzanne on June 11, 2011 wrote:

Karl,
Thanks for visiting our site and contacting us with your great question!  I’ve done a little digging around through the sources we cited in our SchoolQuest Library document regarding this subject (titled Deployment Related School Attendance Policies) as well as by simply using Google with “Sample request for excused absence due to deployment of parent” in the Search line.  Interestingly, the fourth item that came up in my search was the Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC) publication “Military-Connected Students and Public School Attendance Policies” which we provide a link for in the SchoolQuest Library document I mentioned above.  My research brought up several examples of school, district and/or state policies regarding such requests, however, I found no specific example of a letter for a parent to use.  If you have found anything since posting your question, please share it with us . . . no need to “reinvent the wheel” if there’s already a great example out there.  If not, perhaps you’ll want to create one of your own to share!  I hope this helps and thanks again for visiting SchoolQuest.  Please check out our “Find a School” tool to look up data we have for schools in your area and contact our team at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with any updates or edits.
V/R, Suzanne

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