A quiet but increasingly heated debate is playing out between parents and school systems across the country, and at its center is a question that more and more families are asking out loud: is it acceptable to excuse your children from school for the sake of a family trip? Theme parks like Disneyland are reportedly packed with school-age children on weekday afternoons in November, not during any official break, because parents are choosing to take their kids out of class for travel they believe offers a different kind of education. As reported by Yahoo News, a growing number of families are doing this not once, but several times a year.
Parent Amelia Edelman is among those who excuse their children’s absences multiple times annually for travel purposes, viewing these trips as educational experiences that a classroom simply cannot replicate. The trend appears to be gaining significant momentum. According to a 2025 report from travel company Zicasso, families are traveling during the school year more than ever before, most commonly with an educational goal in mind. Demand for family travel in May alone more than quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, offering a striking numerical picture of just how widespread the practice has become.
The financial argument is impossible to ignore. Travel during official school vacations carries a steep premium, with flights, hotels, and park admissions all surging when demand peaks. According to Bloomberg data, the average cost of a spring break trip in 2025 was around $8,306, roughly double what the same trip would have cost in 2019. For many families, a trip in early February is not a luxury choice made to avoid crowds — it is simply the only financially realistic option. Christina Mott, a mother of three, put it plainly: “Every year we pull the kids out for a week. I don’t want to pay top dollar and stand in lines for hours. When we travel in February or March, it’s a completely different experience.”
Supporters of the practice also point to the genuine educational value of travel itself. Early childhood expert Janice Robinson-Celeste, who admits she plans to excuse her own granddaughter for an upcoming trip, argues that immersive real-world experiences offer something a classroom cannot easily match. “Children who experience new cultures in real time expand their vocabulary, curiosity, and confidence in ways that a classroom struggles to replicate,” she said. “They’re not just reading about history or geography — it’s happening right in front of them.” She also took aim at the pricing structure that penalizes families who stick to the school calendar, calling mid-week January travel “an economic necessity, not a rebellion.”
Not everyone is convinced, however, and the critics raise concerns that go well beyond simple rule-following. Educator Hezekiah Herrera argues that attendance laws were originally created to protect the most vulnerable students, including children in marginalized communities who depend on school for meals, transportation, safety, and support services. He warns that the travel trend “weakens those standards for the sake of leisure” and risks “undermining the legal mechanisms that ensure the most at-risk students attend school for the meals, safety, and support services they depend on.” He also draws a sharper class line through the debate, arguing that framing wealthy families’ travel as a superior form of learning creates new inequalities in privilege, since students with more resources can hire tutors and catch up easily, while those with fewer options cannot. A 2019 study by researcher Michael Gottfried found that absences negatively affect not just the students who miss school, but also the classmates who remain, since instructional time gets consumed by catch-up work.
There are also practical downsides that parents who have tried it report firsthand. Editor Sarah Stocking noted that her children missed school events that had not yet been announced when she booked the trip, while another parent, Joy Ramirez, found that her high schooler “can no longer keep up” with the increasingly demanding coursework when absences are factored in. Students with developmental needs face an additional layer of disruption, as missed speech therapy, occupational therapy, or other specialized sessions can reset weeks of carefully built progress.
The debate ultimately circles back to a deeper question about what education is actually for. Robinson-Celeste framed it this way: “Schools exist to serve children and communities, not the other way around.” She pointed out that if universities award credit for experiences like studying abroad, it seems worth asking whether some version of that recognition might make sense for younger students too. Herrera, meanwhile, has proposed exploring alternative school calendar models such as a 45-days-on, 15-days-off rotation that would give families the ability to travel off-peak without any academic penalty. Chronic absenteeism in the United States rose 57 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to a June 2025 report from the American Enterprise Institute, making the stakes of this conversation higher than ever.
Do you think pulling kids out of school for family travel is acceptable, or should vacation always wait for the official school break? Share your thoughts in the comments.
