Homework
At Midwest, homework is assigned when it is relevant and applicable to concepts students are learning in class. We do not believe in assigning homework for the sake of busywork.
Homework should be able to be completed in a reasonable amount of time, relevant to grade level progression. In middle school, 20 minutes of math practice and 20 minutes of reading is commonly assigned.
Teachers electronically post all homework assignments online through our secure learning management system by 5:00 p.m. daily. Students and parents can seek clarification regarding assignments through the online system or by emailing teachers.
Teachers ought to be able to exercise their judgment in determining how they want to deal with homework, taking account of the needs and preferences of the specific children in their classrooms, rather than having to conform to a fixed policy that has been imposed on them . . . [which] is a paradigmatic case of making kids accommodate to a one-size-fits-all policy rather than putting the kids first, treating them as individuals, and designing practices that benefit them.
Homework for homework’s sake is avoided, but if something [students] are learning needs to be done at home, then that becomes their homework . . .The guiding conviction is that anything done at home should be useful activity that is part of participating in the school community, not a matter of practicing skills so that everyone can be on the same page according to an arbitrary grade level or timeline—e.g., memorizing multiplication tables, doing worksheets.