Dear Editor:
Would you want your kids to have a bad future? Do you want your kids to fail in class? And if they already are, make it end by reading this article. Students lose their learning when their minds are on vacation for a long period of time. Also, they miss their homework as they go on vacation. This also leaves their teachers more things to worry about. I think that students shouldn't take vacations during school.

When their minds are on vacation for a long period of time they lose their learning. Everyone knows that when you're on vacation, your minds are on something more than schoolwork. Caitlin Moran, a British broadcaster, a TV critic and a columnist at The Times, said that students who skip school for more that 20 days have only 20% chance of graduation on time. Seattle Times Staff Reporter, Claudia Rowe, said that they are tracking 13 million students who have failed to graduate on time, have a poor attendance history. In 2010, more than half of the 590 students at the Aki Kurose Middle School were absent for at least 10 days. Imagine how much learning that they are missing. Pat Marsden, a mom of 4 children and a grandmother of 5 said that students do learn on vacation, only conscientious students do by making up homework and traveling around learning about new places, although lax ones don't. This shows that parents are letting their kids miss school and making them lesser successful in life. On the other hand, students who CHOOSE to go on vacation or stay at home don't care about their own learning, their own life, their own future. If all students decided to go to school instead of going on vacation, almost all students would have a possibility to graduate and would have a bright future instead of a dark one. But, unfortunately, it has happened. I think that students should take more responsibility in their learning.

Students who miss school can also miss homework as they start to pile up waiting for them to come back to school and do it. I know people who have been sick so bad that they had to skip school for 1 or 2 days and come back and unfortunately they were supposed to receive a lot of homework due in 1 or 2 weeks and already they have lost 1 day to do it and school learning lessons. I also know people who are on vacation for weeks and come back with too much homework waiting for them that they sometimes skip school activities, that are actually fun. This is important because homework is a thing that shows your learning improvement and understanding for their own life. If your child doesn't do their own homework then they are showing their own teachers that your child had been wasting time listening to them teaching. Would you like this to happen to your kids? This shows that if they miss school they miss homework.

Students who miss school without telling their teachers, leave them worried about how much learning that their students is missing and are mad because their student did not tell them when they are going to come back and just didn't show up the next day. Mrs. Jennifer Matter, a 6th grade teacher at James Madison Middle School said, "If a student goes on a trip, gives no advance notice, and doesn't ask for homework, then I am disappointed that the student didn't take responsibility." Students, this is how teachers feel when you go on vacation without notifying them, and parents do you want this to happen to your kids? Students that I know usually go on vacation somewhere like Hawaii, or a state somewhere, or maybe even a different country for weeks and usually they come back with a tan! Do your kids go on vacation? If your answer is yes, maybe, of course I do, sometimes, etc. then you are affecting your kid's learning by allowing them to do so. But, on the other hand, if your kids are the kind of student that is responsible and cares about their learning then you are an amazing parent. Again, students who miss school without notifying their teachers then they don't care about their learning while their teachers do.

In conclusion, students shouldn't waste their school time going on vacation. The only results of this happening leads to them losing their learning, missing homework, and teachers worrying about it. Would you like to end this? If so, whenever your kids want to go somewhere or you want to go somewhere, just make sure that your kids remembers to take care of their own learning first instead of just getting overexcited and not doing their own homework.

Sincerely,
Duyen Au
Student, Madison Middle School