Educationally Valuable Experiences

We took our children out of school for two days last week to go to Denver, Colorado. I checked with the school to see what we needed to do to have their absences Excused and was told that a new policy is going into effect regarding Educationally Valuable Experiences (EVEs).

In order to have such an absence excused, parents have to identify four benchmarks that their children will be addressing while participating in EVEs. And these benchmarks must come from Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. If the EVE doesn't address a benchmark in each one, then the absence will not be excused.

After identifying the benchmarks, the student must prepare a written report and an oral presentation upon return to school before they will even consider excusing the absence. And then there is no guarantee that if you go to the extra effort that it will be excused.

We decided to just let the children have Unexcused Absences. We know they learned so much on our trip that is of value to them. They toured the US Mint, the Colorado History Museum, the Colorado State Capitol, the Denver Art Museum, the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the City of Denver. They can tell you facts and information about everything they saw and did. They can also tell you that what some people consider to be art is, in the words of our 3rd grader, "Just wrong. Just Plain Wrong!"