Homework As an Option?

MOUNDSVILLE - Days of lugging home heavy backpacks filled with textbooks could soon be over for students in Marshall County, where school officials may stop requiring them to complete their homework.

Bonnie Ritz, director of curriculum and instruction, said administrators have discussed a policy that would not penalize students for failing to do their homework. The idea is that students who do their homework would improve their grades, but students not doing the work would not see grades suffer as a result. She said the concept grew out of concerns that some students in the county don't have sufficient help or resources at home.

"We want to do what's best for the students," Ritz stressed. "Right now it's something we're just looking into. We are into discussion research but have not come to any conclusions yet.

"We are not suggesting that students not do homework," she added. "We believe students need to do homework, but it needs to be meaningful and constructive not meaningless busy work."

Current Marshall County homework policy states that, on average, students should do about 10 minutes of homework per grade level per school night. Under this guideline, a sixth-grader would be expected to do about an hour of homework.

Ritz said school officials follow research in making such decisions. When concerns about some students not having needed support to complete homework came up, research on the topic was examined.

"We always have to be aware that we have students that don't have support at home or may not have computers to help them," she said.

She noted, for example, that if a student does a certain type of math problem incorrectly over and over, that is not productive.

"Grades should reflect the students' mastery of content, not things like attendance or discipline," Ritz added.

She said discussion of the concept is in its very early stages and that the plan is nowhere close to being implemented or even being presented to the board for approval.

"We're studying it," she said. "We had a meeting at the end of March and have opened dialogue and discussion. We talked with some principals and teachers and are looking for feedback."