Walnut Creek School Board Adopts Kinder, Gentler Homework Policy

Starting in the new school year, middle school students won't have to do hours and hours of homework each night, and all of the district's K-8 students should be receiving assignments that have a point to them and won't hit them with new concepts that were not covered in class.  

However, teachers will have leeway to assign some of those dreaded map coloring assignments. 

The Walnut Creek School District Board unanimously adopted a comprehensive homework policy that essentially offers guidelines, not strict rules, to teachers, parents and students on how to make homework a routine but valuable part of learning. 

The policy was the culmination of about a year's worth of study by a committee of teachers, administrators and parents. 

Wool said the district launched this committee to get a handle on the increase in the amount of homework students are receiving, a situation that can cause serious student and family stress. The emphasis on homework has arisen in our community in an era of  increasingly rigorous academic standards imposed by the state--and so soon by the federal government.

Wool noted that California has some of the toughest standards in the nation. The downside is that teachers often feel they must cram so much material into a class day, and add onto school work with home assignments, to make sure their students are keeping up with those standards.  

"We have so many standards," she said. "We have to ferret out what are the essential standards."

Both Wool and school board member Dan Walden said their participation in this homework committee introduced them to one of the most exciting and thought-provoking education topics they have ever worked on. "This is one of the most engaging discussions I can recall," Walden said, while Wool said "This is one of the most rewarding activities I've worked on since I began with the district because it could affect how we do business and how affect families."

As I have written in previous articles, the debate about homework touches on much larger societal issues about education, learning, parenting, and the definition of academic and personal success.

The purpose of this policy, Wool said, is to "balance student learning in a standards-based environment and to help families balance home life.

The draft policy seeks to address these issues by saying that homework should:

• Be "meaningful and purposeful."
• Reinforce concepts that have already been taught in class.
• Not be assigned on the weekends or holiday

Teachers should work together by grades and departments to make sure that they are assigning similar amounts and types of homework, coordinating deadlines for major projects, and "differentiating" when appropriate. Parents, meanwhile, are "encouraged" to work cooperatively with the school and to not do their children's assignments for them—including, those fourth-grade mission projects.

The recommended homework time limits per grade are listed in the Crazy in Suburbia column: "Trying to Take The Excess and Frustration out of Homework," published Sunday on Walnut Creek Patch. A PDF of the policy accompanies that column.

One key concern among committee members is whether teachers would "buy in" to this policy and use it to guide their homework assignments. Committee member, Julie Krug, a French teacher at Walnut Creek Intermediate, presented the policy to the board, and believes teachers will appreciate the policy presenting guidelines, not detailed hard-and-fast rules.

"It's not to specific," she said. "We're not saying that every teacher should only count this certain percentage of homework in a grade, but only that it should be 'a relatively minor percentage in a standards-based system.' ... There's wiggle room there. It makes us feel more like professionals."

Krug added that this policy finally gives her some clarity on when and how to best assign homework. "I've been teaching here for 20 years, and I never noticed any guidelines about homework," she said. "I never had any guidelines in college. I never had any classes about homework. I actually feel more comfortable with this. I've got parameters. I fee more comfortable knowing where the lines are."