Ruth Baltopoulos wrote:


Is there no viable way to address such legitimate concerns
with the School District or the School Committee? If it is
clearly a serious problem across the board, is there no
recourse? Again, I don't envy the descripiton of your
situation.

It's difficult to address right now because it's
so variable. This year, my 2nd grader has a fabulous
teacher and his hasn't been a problem. I hardly know
he *has* homework--he just does it ;-) My 4th grader
has a teacher I like very much, but I think she's
somewhat scatterbrained about the homework. I don't
think she *means* to overwhelm the kids, but it
happens anyway. I think what happens is that she has
a "normal" homework schedule that is just a bit on the
high side, but nothing I'd make a stink over if most
weeks were "normal" weeks. But what happens in reality
is that there's an ongoing parade of little things that
bring extra assignments (long term projects, things assigned
by special teachers, makeups for classwork that was pre-empted
by assemblies/special events, etc.) or other things that
muck with the schedule. I think she also isn't the best
at estimating how long it will take for homework. She
seems to think that math homework will take a long time,
but everything else won't take long at all. I don't think
many 4th graders can write a clean draft of a five paragraph
essay from scratch in 15-20 minutes (which I assume is what
she's estimating, given that she thinks a half hour of reading,
an essay, and a couple of math worksheets can be done in
an hour). So, several of us parents raise the issue now
and again, and it usually results in her being more careful
for a bit, but then the homework level creeps back up again.
We all like her so much we don't really want to nag her
about it, and we don't want to go over her head to the
principal, but we also don't want our lives to be consumed
by homework... I could make a stink with the principal
and it would likely do some good (we have a fabulous principal),
but it just doesn't seem warranted in this situation. I have
talked to him about homework in past situations with some
benefit.
And then there's the issue of activities. Our
schedule is such that our kids have at least an uninterrupted
hour every school day to do homework, plus additional time
for reading. For me to schedule more than that (and still
maintain the bedtimes my kids need to be civilized human
beings ;-) would mean absolutely no activities during the
week. My kids love the things they do, and I don't think
it's excessive (well, except during Nutcracker season ;-)
and it doesn't seem reasonable to me to deny them their
activities just to make sure that they can devote two or
three hours to homework every night when they won't actually
*have* that much every night. We've discussed the possibility
of having homework assigned on a weekly basis so they can
work ahead the nights they have more time, but the teachers
don't want to do that (for assorted reasons, some of which
make some sense and others of which just seem crazy to me).
We do have them work ahead on some things that they know
will be coming with some regularity.
Anyway, this year isn't as bad as some have been,
so we're mostly managing. Last year was pretty bad. I'm
a little afraid of next year, because 3rd grade is pretty
tough and I've heard rumors that the 5th grade teachers
are heavier on the homework. Also, in 5th grade DS1 will
go back to having different teachers for language arts,
math, and science, and there's ample opportunity for
lack of communication among all the teachers to result
in mountains of homework on some nights.
We try to find some sort of balance, but it is
often frustrating. I just wish there wasn't this
culture of "more homework = better education" fueling
this whole thing. It would make things a lot easier.

Best wishes,
Ericka