Is your dad taking you to work? Schools hope not Many U.S. school districts are urging parents to keep their kids in class and not take them to work Thursday for an annual event they say disrupts learning at an increasingly critical time of year.

"This year, of all years, to have a student miss a day for something like this that could be done anytime — it just seems the focus should be on students and their learning here," said Guy Schumacher, the superintendent of Libertyville Elementary School District 70 in suburban Chicago.

Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom — even for one day.

Administrators have been complaining about the event's date for well over a decade. Some have said they've contacted the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation to ask that it be held on a school holiday or during the summer, but the organization won't budge.

"It's always there on the calendar, the fourth Thursday in April.

Darrell Propst, principal of Taylor Elementary School in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, said it's the same day his third- and fourth-graders are taking the Ohio Achievement Assessment test. Like others administrators who sent letters or posted e-mail messages on school Web sites, he asked parents to find another day to bring their children to work.

"Because of the high-stakes testing we're involved in during the spring, the kids need to be in school as much as they can," said Ron Simpson, a spokesman for a regional education service center in Richardson, Texas.

Some parents, however, say their children learn enough about their parents and the world that day to make up for whatever they miss in class.

"I think it's a great opportunity for my daughter to see her mother in action, so to speak," said Alicia Agugliaro, who planned to take her 7-year-old daughter to the drug development company in Princeton, N.J., where she works in marketing communications. "Our company emphasized leadership and partnership, and I think that's a good message for kids."

- Posted on April 22, 2010