By Jordan Joyce | Staff Writer

Aiming to decrease the amount of homework students receive, the campus improvement committee has developed a new policy.

“I think there was some confusion on the original policy. With the change from the A/B schedule to an eight period day, we had to make changes in how much homework teachers could assign, because a lot of teachers were assigning homework every day and the kids were getting overwhelmed,” art teacher Lisa Mittler said. “We had to split it up a little bit.”

The new homework policy was created to lighten the student workload and provide them with more time for other activities.

“I think the change to the homework policy was necessary because a lot of students were feeling overburdened by the amount of homework they were given,” English teacher Gabriel Oviedo said.

Should instructors fail to comply with the altered policy, discussion and correction is promised.

“As much as I think teachers are professional and responsible, if it’s obvious that a teacher is blatantly disregarding certain aspects of the homework policy, a discussion with that teacher should be in order,” Oviedo said.

As a member of the Campus Improvement Committee, Lisa Mittler suggests that students remain vocal, should they feel that the policy is not adhered to.

“Students need to be aware of the homework policy, and they need to speak up if teachers are violating the policy,” she said. “Speak up to an administrator, a counselor, or another teacher, because we are all aware of the homework policy. Students need to advocate for themselves if there is an issue, and stand up for themselves.”

Although students may think having too much homework in a certain course is unfair, they also need to consider the expectations for students enrolled in that particular class.

“There are certain subjects whose homework requirements are different than other subjects,” Oviedo said. “If you look at pre-AP and AP classes versus regular, the reading load is much greater. It just depends on how the students interpret the homework assignments. Some students wait until the last minute to do it, so they are inundated with a lot of hours of work when it was initially meant to be broken up over time. It depends on how the teachers present it, how the students interpret it and also the subject.”

Although homework loads differ by class and grade level, the policy will provide a guideline that guarantees uniformity.

“There’s no room for error if you follow the homework policy; everything should work out just fine,” Mittler said. “I think we covered all the bases, so we’ll see.”