If You Got Your Child's Elementary School to Reduce Homework, Please Advise Me

I know you have a lot of answers already, I just wanted to put in a good word for private schools. My son attends a private school in Tulsa, you can go to their website and read about it. He is in 5th grade this year, his homework is any where from 60 to 90 minutes, not every night. He does have reading every night. Then it rotates between other classes, Math, English and spelling most nights. If he has more than that it is because he didn't get it done in class. Take a look at Riverfield Country Day School, it is in a nice setting and they really have done a great job. My son use to go to a Montessori School and did not work for him.

You also are fighting against something you may not be aware of: Pride.
It is something that I noticed a lot of private schools use to say they are a "better" school... that their curriculum is more demanding... by saying they have 2 hours (or whatever) of homework each night. My husband was always put off by that. They have the kids for 7 or 8 hours a day. If they can't teach them what they need to in that amount of time then they are doing something wrong. Sure, they might need some reinforcement at home, but not 2-3 hours a night.
I bet if you go look at the school's promotional material, you will see a place where they list how many hours of homework to expect per grade level. The higher the grade, the more hours of homework are expected.
I agree that if you have a large number of parents "with" you, then approaching the administration might help. But I think what you are experiencing is pretty normal for Abeka curriculum...it isn't just your particular school going over the top. They are following the curriculum.

The great thing about private schools is that if enough parents threaten to remove their kids from the school, things will change, and fast. My kids were in private school until last year, and I always found it amazingly easy to get things to change. Get a bunch of parents together and demand it. You pay tuition, and that's the ultimate leverage. My daughter is in 4th grade in a public school, and they assign 1 hour of homework (including a half hour of reading). There's no reason there needs to be more homework than that, unless the child is not completing their work in class and has to take it home.

My kids are supposed to have anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of home work each night. It took us about 2-3 hours. Why? Because there's 2 of them, 1st and 2nd grade, and we MAKE that our family time. We play school in the weekends and over the summer, to reinforce what they're learning. If you can turn homework into family time, both problems are solved! Learning's FUN (at least my kids think it is, for now), so there's no loss, only gain :)

If they say 45 minutes max on homework, then don't spend more than an hour on it. Let them know that your child works an hour a night on homework and then they'll realize that they are giving too much! Communicate that you were told 45 minutes and you spend an hour. If the school doesn't like this, then find another school. I wish you the best.

We had same issue with a charter school we were interviewing. The principal insisted at the walk-through that k-2 students would have no more than 20-30 minutes per night which would include reading. 3-4 graders would have 30-45 per night including reading. I told her that I spoke with other parents of students as well as the public librarian about what she experienced as kids came in to work on projects, etc. and they all said to expect 1.5-2 hours per night, that they were given 20 minutes of homework for every subject each night. The principal flat out refused this to be true. We decided that our community school was a friendlier fit and decided to attend there.

Yes, I say get those parents together and speak up about what is being required of your kids every night. Keep a log of what the teachers are assigning every night and how long your child is working. Take that evidence to the principal. Kids need time to do a sport, a hobby, a club like boy scouts, church and just down time.

They will stop doing that when they start losing business over it.

Good luck. It is part of the ABeka curriculum. I taught it for a couple of years. I spent hours as a teacher every night grading the many workbook pages. I am not criticizing the curriculum; it had some very positive points. But it was very reliant on worksheets and required a lot of extra work. (for both students and teachers) If your child is highly motivated and learns quickly, it is a great curriculum. But struggling students find it much more difficult. As a teacher, I am still not a big fan of homework...family time is SOOO important.

All homework is supposed to do is solidify the concepts learned in class during the day. 5 -7 math problems, a paragraph in a journal, 20 minutes of reading... not much more than that should be required in elementary school. A long term project with checkpoints every few weeks is also fine, but 3 hours a night would send a huge red flag for me. What AREN'T they doing in the classroom during the day? Why do they have to spend so much time doing homework? Does the teacher have poor classroom management skills?
Spend some time in the classroom to find out. Are the kids given opportunities to do work in the classroom or are the lessons taught and no reinforcement time given?
If you can't cover the material in class, there is something desperately wrong.
LBC

Host a viewing of "Race to Nowhere" and make sure your school's faculty and staff are present.

In one AP class, the teacher decided to do away with homework, to see what would happen. Every student's grade went up.

That should tell us something, don't you think?

I agree with Momma L. When students transfer out they will rethink their plan. Burning students out will not benefit your child or your family. I would start looking at other schools.

We had a few parents at our daughters elementary school who felt there was too much homework..

What the teachers at that school asked was for the students to do their homework and stop after 20 minutes (per subject) and go no further (3rd and 4th graders). This way the teachers could see where each student was at. Also homework was not required every night in every subject.. Math and language arts were, but Social studies science etc.. were a few times a week.

They also asked parents no to correct the homework.. Again the teachers wanted to see what the student was struggling with.. sometimes, this lets the teacher know if they did not cover the subject well enough or that particular question or problem needed to be explained to the entire class.

I know you said your daughter is working the entire time, but some parents had to be reminded that 20 minutes did not include the time to get a snack to go to the potty etc.. it meant the actual time working on the homework..

Yes, there were a few students that could not meet the time needed and complete all of it. , but they also were not missing any of the questions or problems that were on their papers.. This told the teachers these students knew the work, they were just slower.. This seemed to appease the parents.

For 2 of the parents, they did not like this, (they felt it sent a bad message to their children not to have to complete the work) they wanted all of the students to not have all of this homework. So they were given the option of moving their students to the class that allowed students to start their homework during class time..

Try to work with the school and see what you as a group can come up with. How many weeks have they been in school?

Is this a special private school that specializes in advanced curriculum or for advanced students? I know here in Austin there is a particular school that it is just known for being ubber advanced and the parents and students know it is aggressive with the homework.. I have heard some of those parents say they feel like that is all that they do at night is homework.

I wouldn't expect that much homework until maybe the last year of middle school through high school. In elementary my kids get daily homework during the week that really does last only an hour tops as long as they don't fight it and no homework on weekends.

We've already been warned that now that my eldest is starting 6th grade her homework during the week will double and she'll be getting homework on weekends. We'll be making sure that during the week she doesn't get any of her technologies and no TV or phone privileges until all work is completed each day. Privileges will also be dependent on grades.

That said... what you're describing is too much homework. But I have a problem with their logic. Three hours of planned homework during the week every night. The kids are supposed to learn to work faster to step it up. Doesn't that suggest that they'll learn to speed through their work and it won't be as good quality? Sorry, but I'd rather have them spend the time on the homework so that it's not shoddy than "learn to work faster.

And the teachers have to correct and grade all this homework. When do the teachers get to have a life?

So what happens if you just don't do it? Send in a note saying you will spend 30 minutes a day on homework but beyond that it is family time. I would do it. I would also do some literature review to provide documentation. There is no evidence that homework is in any way beneficial to elementary and middle school children. The evidence for high school kids is unclear - could go either way.

WOW...may God grant you Patience...