Parents are frustrated with how much homework their kids are getting. They believe their students should be getting more homework than they are currently getting at the elementary school level.

They feel like their child is not going to be prepared and it is not preparing them for the workload in later years. 

Parker Wyttenbach, a junior at Oakdale High, explains, “[Younger students] will not be prepared for high school; they will be surprised and caught off guard,” 

Students should gradually build up the workload through elementary, middle and high school. Kids in elementary school are still young; they want to go outside and play with their friends and they should be afforded that. They don’t deserve more than 30 minutes of homework a night. 

In 2013, the University of Phoenix held a survey about how much homework teachers give a night. For elementary schoolers, it was only 3 hours a week.

In middle school, there are more classes so giving about an hour of homework a night seems reasonable, and maybe an hour and a half in high school, maybe more. The Concordia University in Portland says that the 10 minutes per grade level rule still applies. So, if a student was in 12th grade, they should have an average of 120 minutes per night.

Another reason parents may have this concern is because they think their kids have too much free time. Scotty Boyer, a sophomore at Oakdale High School, explains, “They could claim their children have too much free time and take up bad habits.” They want their kids to avoid getting into trouble, so they want them to stay busy with valuable things such as homework. 

Superintendent Terry Alban shares in an article with the Frederick News Post that she agrees with homework, but only for the right reasons. She doesn’t think that homework should be a punishment for kids. 

It is rare that students are assigned homework as a punishment anymore. Wyttenbach shares the same opinion. He says he has not been assigned homework as a punishment. 

Most of the time, homework is given to build off what students learn in class that day, or it is classwork that isn’t finished during the class time. It is beneficial to have homework; it keeps students thinking about the things they do in class and helps them not forget by the next day. Studies show that students only retain 50% of the information teachers give in class, so it is important to practice at home.

At the elementary level, where parents are having their concerns, they need to have a little more leeway with the homework their kids are getting. They are young, and deserve to still have time to be a kid. 

Overall, homework has many benefits for students, so it should be assigned to students in the right amounts. 

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