Ten officials invested in this, 80 families nabbed at the airport, what criminals, for taking the children out of school a whopping two days early for holidays. No fines were issued, shocking that for a change they didn't try to generate revenue as they typically do. But two days early, to send ten officials to redress these families because they didn't get the permission of the school, which I suspect would have been denied as they feel it's important enough to warrant spending the money of the investigation and officials sent out on the mission. Two weeks I might understand, but two days, that's anal retentive and controlling if you ask me.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6f2FI...VdJ6LX7cSjedxbQ

I beg to disagree. Just try to fly away on vacation without prior permission of your employer and see what's going to happen. I know a school is not a job but the rules of a school and a company are similar in many ways. And please, imagine what would happen if children, all year long, would leave their classrooms for a vacation with their parents. How would it be possible to teach them the progrmme? On the other hand, I'm of course in favour of the schools giving that wretched permission if the parents leave only one or two days before the end of the school year! Once again this thing reeks of red tape!

I agree in part, it's a problem that the schools have really created themselves by trying to be too controlling in the first place. They love to be able to tell you that you don't have permission to do this and that, we both know something we've heard all too frequently is, "Dat mag niet." They really set the stage by being so inflexible. But it's not as if the entire school does it, and to actually send people out to airports to nab them? Now, that's just bizarre if you ask me, but it goes to show just how controlling they do want to be to blow it so out of proportion.

The schools want to be controlling every little thing they can and trying to bend everyone to every rule, meanwhile if they screw up, it's no problem, no punishment, nothing. Typically Dutch mentality these days of the petty little man who feels that they can lecture anyone on anything. (A really crap legacy from Balkie, and a real way to earn enemies.) Try doing that in the US, and you're likely to punched in the face or sued. The whole things sounds like worthless procedures for stupid people to justify their existence. It's not like they're out actually taking care of getting youth gangs off the street or something. Much easier to stand around at Schiphol and lecture people.

God forbid the kids miss the films they end up showing the last day that they have already seen! They probably need the kids to be there to clean up the school. My son's schedule (group 7 at a regular Dutch primary school) this week was literally:

Wednesday - Spelletje's day (kids were allowed to bring their games to school and play until noon.) At 12, the children were given their report cards
Thursday- Playing football, watching a cartoon, mid day break, going back and cleaning the classroom and school building
Friday- Watching "School of Rock" with Dutch subtitles while the teachers escaped to the lounge or smoked outside. I arrived a bit early to pick up my son (to help with the pile of projects and books he'd need to take home) and was shocked to see all of the teachers in the lounge while children were in classrooms without teachers watching movies.

It's been this way for YEARS (except a different film on Friday or a "vossenjacht"). He was dreading going back to school Wednesday evening because he said there would be a morning and an afternoon to fill with doing nothing and wondered what torture they would come up with.

My other two children are in secondary school (VWO and HAVO respectively) and their schedule the last two weeks is even worse and yet as parents we can't dare leave the country to miss two or three days and they had to go back on Thursday to pick up their reports (all of five minutes) while Friday they aren't even required to go to school. The dog had a look on his face like "When are they going to leave?" I shouldn't complain, though, because my brother has to figure out ways to educate/entertain my nephews for nearly three months during summer break in the US. We used to read books and go outside but kids of today want to sit inside and play WII for three months straight and go into convulsions at the mere mention of a book. It really makes me wonder if the Department of Education powers that be in any country actually have children.

It's hard to take the last couple of days seriously when you know the kids are effectively picking their noses for a week. It didn't make much sense because it seemed to punish parents who were taking long-haul flights (and trying to save a bit of money) as opposed to parents with children vacationing at campsites within driving distance. The parents at our school are rather well off and the children who were not present Wednesday, Thursday or Friday had the parents that had loaded their caravans/motorhomes and wanted to beat the weekend rush. What good would sending resources to the airport when most are driving out of the country? Our neighbors snuck out Thursday morning around 3 am and said they were going to call their kids in "sick" for Thursday and Friday.

Sorry, rant over

Yet, my kid is home today from school because the teacher couldn't make it in and they didn't get a substitute for the class, and considering this happens more then once, they shouldn't complain that a parent decides to take their child out of school early for summer vacation.