As a school community, we value time with family and spending your time and talents in a local church. As a school, our policy is for no major tests or projects to be due on Monday. However, due to the complexity of the upper campus schedule, there may be times when such a due date is unavoidable. We encourage all of our staff and students to use the weekend to rest, catch up on any missing work, and be involved in a local church.
The necessity for doing homework will vary from grade to grade and even from student to student. The guide below indicates an average time for the student. Teachers will post homework assignments and require students to record these assignments. Teacher should assess each assignment with the question, “Is this assignment/homework absolutely necessary for my class to move forward in the curriculum?”
Daily Maximum Homework Time (Grade/Minutes)
| Kindergarten | 10 minutes |
| 1st and 2nd | 20 minutes |
| 3rd and 4th | 30 minutes |
| 5th and 6th | 40 minutes |
| 7th and 8th | 60 minutes |
| High School | 90 minutes |
| AP Classes | Each AP class will require additional time |
No homework should be due on the first day after Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter break.
Homework Policies – grades TK – 5
Students in grades one through four should record assignments in their agenda; parents should initial the agenda daily; teachers should check agendas daily. Students in fifth grade will record assignments in a designated manner on their laptop. Parents are encouraged to check students’ assignments as needed. Individual homework contracts may be assigned for students having difficulty and will require parent involvement.
Homework Policies – grades 4 – 12
In grades 4-12, homework should not be assigned in any single subject (with the exception of math) more than 3 times per week (including quizzes and tests).
Major non-test assignments will have both a punctuality grade and a content grade. Punctuality is based on on-time submission with each assignment receiving a 100% (on-time) or a 0% (late) on the day the assignment is handed in. The content grade is based on the quality of the work submitted and the teacher will have up to two weeks to grade this work.
When a student receives the Blackbaud notification of a zero in punctuality, they will have one week to submit the assignment for a 10% deduction in the content grade. An assignment turned in beyond that week will receive a maximum grade of 50% for the content grade. (Any extenuating circumstances expire at one month from the due date or at the end of the semester)
Daily homework assignments must be handed in on the day they are due. If a homework assignment is checked in class, it may not be handed in late and the student will receive a zero for the assignment (for classes that have many homework assignments, two homework grades may be dropped per semester).
The teacher should teach the concepts well and homework should provide practice to build skills, confidence, and a student’s overall proficiency.
- Teachers who spend time planning make better teachers.
- Teams of teachers who work together planning homework allocation help the students cope with the load, especially in the middle and upper grade levels where students have different teachers for each of their subjects.
- Certain subjects or periods are scheduled to give homework on certain days (only 3 days per week per subject including study for tests and quizzes). Each subject is limited to 20 minutes per day in order to ease the total workload.
- A Test Planning Google Calendar is used so that no grade level has more than two tests, projects, etc., on any given day.
- The Math Department has a policy stating an average of 10 problems per night.
- Cross-curricular assigning and grading can be very helpful in reducing both student and teacher workloads.
- Technology is a great tool for homework and can give immediate feedback that is not possible except with a personal tutor. Some programs will give prompts if a student has the wrong answer or allow you to re-watch the teaching part again. Students do better when they know that their work will be graded and they will get instant feedback. Teachers are able to pull a statistical summary to get feedback on student accomplishments and check for content mastery and skills acquisition. This type of homework extends the guided practice time from the school into the home and students can gain confidence and mastery of skills.
