Mother fined for going on holiday with daughter during school

A court in the city of Winterthur, Switzerland, has sentenced a woman to pay a fine of 1,000 Swiss francs ($1 162) for having made her daughter miss a week of classes at the beginning of 2023.

According to the Luxembourg daily, the teenager’s mother had filed a request for exemption from classes, but the latter had been rejected by the establishment for several reasons: the requested vacation days coincided with a period of tests deemed important, the student had already accumulated 36 half-days of absence, six of which were unjustified, and his grades were generally insufficient.

A first fine of 3,000 francs

School is compulsory in the canton of Zurich, where the city of Winterthur is located.

Parents are required to contact the school to request an exemption from attending classes. It will then be able to grant it only if there are sufficient reasons.

The mother was initially fined 3,000 Swiss francs (around 3,139 euros) before filing an appeal. The court ruled that her daughter had not “suffered any academic disadvantages by missing the first week of school after the holidays”. Before specifying that the test had been “able to be made up without any problem”.