Samo faculty drafts new homework policy

After a 2009 request from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, (SMMUSD) Samo’s Instructional Planning Committee (IPC) has drafted a new homework policy that acts as a guide for the Samo community.According to a February draft of the policy, teachers are limited to assigning 30 minutes of homework per night, as well required to provide timely feedback to students.  The policy also outlines the three types of homework: practice, preparation, and extension.The Board of Education (BOE) established Board Policy 6154 in October of 2009, which listed expectations regarding homework and makeup policies for grades K through 8, according to Principal Eva Mayoral. The high school requirements, however, were left up to Samo faculty to decide.“Assignments should be designed so that the typical student can complete all homework within a reasonable time,” the Board policy states.Mayoral brought the Board Policy (BP) and the Administrative Regulation (AR) to Samo’s IPC to create a collective policy.“It was important to me that the development of the Homework Policy be a collaborative effort, as opposed to me crafting it independently by candle light in some back room,” Mayoral said.The IPC, which is composed of department chairs, administrators, teacher leaders from all of Samo’s Houses and a professional development leader, met on several occasions to draft a policy that incorporated requirements that most Samo teachers already practiced school board rules. Members spent time observing policies of other schools and later selected what pieces would best apply to Samo, according to science teacher and M-House teacher leader Christina Staroschak.IPC then presented the draft of the policy to solicit feedback from faculty. After further revision, IPC drafted a complete, up-to-date policy, according to English teacher Gilda de la Cruz.The policy outlines Samo’s reasons for assigning homework, the average amount of homework a typical student should receive, makeup work and other explanations that will help students and their parents. Instead of being a plan to keep teachers accountable, the policy will serve to benefit teachers and students, according to Staroschak.“It’s not specific for teachers; that would be a different kind of separate endeavour,” Staroschak said. “It’s intended to create boundaries for the student so that a student isn’t over-extended, but also so that the student is challenged so that the student isn’t going through a class and never having homework.”The policy, according to Mayoral, was written with an average student in mind. Though this student is difficult to define, IPC wanted to create guidelines that would fit the majority of Samo students.“We wanted a policy that would define reasonable homework expectations for all classes, not just college prep classes, and not just honors or AP classes,” Mayoral said. “We wanted to find the line (at least "on average") that provided students ample opportunity to grapple and achieve mastery in the required content of each class, while not compromising health and well being.”