U.K. Court Upholds Fine for Dad Who Took Child From School for Disney Trip
Writing for the court, Justice Brenda Hale ruled that the requirement
that a student attend school "regularly" meant "in accordance with the rules prescribed by the school," not, as Mr. Platt argued, "with sufficient regularity." "Over what period is the sufficiency of attendance to be judged?" the court asked.
The journalist Toby Young, writing in the conservative magazine The Spectator, said Mr. Platt might seem like a "conservative hero" by "taking on the overmighty state,"
but he concluded: "The principle he’s standing up for — and which he’s worked himself up into a lather of moral indignation about — is his right to massively inconvenience his daughter’s teachers just so he can go on a family holiday when the costs of overseas travel are lower.
By SEWELL CHANAPRIL 6, 2017
LONDON — A British man who took his daughter out of school without permission to visit Disney World in Florida broke the law
and must pay a penalty, the British Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
"Most of all," the court found, "if one pupil can be taken out whenever it suits the parent, then so can others." Her ruling outlined the history of school attendance laws dating to 1870, when Parliament provided for the creation of public elementary schools
and empowered local boards to require attendance by children ages 5 through 12.
The case originated in January 2015, when Mr. Platt asked to take his daughter, then 6, on a vacation to Disney World.
The Supreme Court’s 18-page ruling overturned two lower courts’ decisions in favor of Mr. Platt, finding
that he had no right to take his daughter out of school without a valid reason, such as illness.
Mr. Platt sued, arguing that his daughter had an attendance rate of 95 percent before the vacation and 90.3 percent afterward.
