Samo to establish homework policy by end of the year

Samo administrators aim to establish a school-wide homework policy by the end of this school year, Principal Laurel Fretz said. Samo is the only school in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) that has not put forth a school-specific homework policy which follows SMMUSD homework policy guidelines.Though each Samo student has a unique homework situation, Fretz said that some students and parents have expressed concern about too much homework.“I hear stories from students and parents that range from ‘I rarely have homework’ to ‘My child does six hours of homework every night,’” Fretz said. “I recently took a quick verbal poll in one of our freshman AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) classes. Students reported a range of weekly hours of homework from three to 13 hours, with the most common answer being around five to six hours per week. We will be conducting surveys soon to give all students, parents and teachers a voice.”According to the SMMUSD guidelines, time spent on homework per night should increase by 10 minutes per grade level, starting with 10 minutes of homework in kindergarten.“Assignments should be designed so that the typical student can complete all homework within a reasonable time,” the policy says. “All assignments shall be carefully constructed with reasonable time allotment to complete them.”There are many sections of the policy that relate to time spent on homework, stating that homework needs to be completed in a “reasonable” amount of time. There is no specified time for highschoolers that is reasonable, nor is there an exact definition in the policy. The new Samo policy will have to comply with this and meet standards of the already set forth policy.Some students are displeased with the amount of homework they are receiving and feel that some of it is not even necessary.“Some of the homework that I get does not reinforce what I learned in class,” Emily Singer (’13) said. “Unless the assignment is a project or essay, assignments should not take more than an hour.”Teachers feel that homework is necessary for student’s learning processes. Some, though, think they need to use discretion in assigning homework.“Students must realize that when they sign up for multiple honors and advanced placement classes,” Samo science teacher Sarah Lipetz said. “This comes with an increased workload and that sometimes they may have multiple tests on the same day with many projects/essays with close due dates.   Time management is an important life lesson and students must learn not to leave things to the last minute!  I try to be reasonable when assigning homework and I feel like my colleagues do as well.”cgoldberg@thesamohi.com