via A Pennsylvania father penned a brilliant response to his children’s principal after the family received a notice about missing three days of school for a trip to Boston for the annual Boston Marathon.
Mike Rossi, a father of twins who are in the third grade, decided to take his family with him to Boston for the annual marathon, in which he was a participant. Rossi’s twins, Jack and Victoria, missed three days of school for the vacation — prompting their principal, Rochelle Marbury, to send home a letter informing him that the missed days would be noted as “unexcused.”
RESPONSE:
Dear Madam Principal,
While I appreciate your concern for our children’s education, I can promise you they learned as much in the five days we were in Boston as they would in an entire year in school.
Our children had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one that can’t be duplicated in a classroom or read in a book.
In the 3 days of school they missed (which consisted of standardized testing that they could take any time) they learned about dedication, commitment, love, perseverance, overcoming adversity, civic pride, patriotism, American history culinary arts and physical education.
They watched their father overcome, injury, bad weather, the death of a loved one and many other obstacles to achieve an important personal goal.
They also experienced first-hand the love and support of thousands of others cheering on people with a common goal.
At the marathon, they watched blind runners, runners with prosthetic limbs and debilitating diseases and people running to raise money for great causes run in the most prestigious and historic marathon in the world.
They also paid tribute to the victims of a senseless act of terrorism and learned that no matter what evil may occur, terrorists can not deter the American spirit.
These are things they won’t ever truly learn in the classroom.
In addition our children walked the Freedom Trail, visited the site of the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre and the graves of several signers of the Declaration of Independence.
These are things they WILL learn in school a year or more from now. So in actuality our children are ahead of the game.
They also visited an aquarium, sampled great cuisine and spent many hours of physical activity walking and swimming.
We appreciate the efforts of the wonderful teachers and staff and cherish the education they are receiving at Rydal Elementary School. We truly love our school.
But I wouldn’t hesitate to pull them out of school again for an experience like the one they had this past week.
This is just the typical arrogance of the school system. They always know best.
What kind of lesson are they trying to teach the children? How in the world is it in the children’s best interest to threaten the parents with a “violation of the compulsory school attendance law”?
But seriously. Who cares? They missed a couple of days of school to go a major U.S. city for a MAJOR event. It’s not like they took a couple of days off to go chill at the local Dairy Queen.
Principal Rochelle S. Marbury is a total joke. Perhaps she should take a few days off from school like these kids did and learn a bit more about how the world actually works!
