Changes To Homework Policy Approved By Fairfield School Board

FAIRFIELD, CT — Fairfield schools will change the way homework is handled in the coming year after the school board recently approved a new homework policy for the district.

The policy dictates that a course grade cannot be determined solely by summative assessments, which are defined as schoolwork expected to reflect mastery of course material. During the past school year all grading at Fairfield schools was summative.

A previous version of the policy, which elicited outcry from district teachers, mandated homework make up at least 10 percent of a student's grade for a high school class and at least 15 percent of each course in middle school.

"There's a great deal of trust involved here," said board member Jennifer Maxon-Kennelly, who chairs the board's policy committee, in a phone interview after the policy was approved. "... We want the staff to feel ownership of this."

The policy also states that by June 2020, school leaders will improve consistency of homework expectations across the same course taught by different teachers. Fairfield Education Association President Bob Smoler expressed concern about the item at a committee meeting June 18.

"Teachers would be very, very upset if they were prescribed the amount of homework they had to deliver," Smoler said at the time.

How the policy is executed is at the discretion of district administrators, Maxon-Kennelly said, and making the policy less specific allows administrators to adjust the way it is regulated.

"We absolutely do not expect every teacher to be in lock step with every other," Maxon-Kennelly said.

The school board unanimously approved the revised policy at its June 25 meeting, according to the draft meeting minutes. During public comment, Smoler, a teacher and a parent all spoke favorably about the policy, the minutes stated, with Smoler and the teacher thanking the board for responding to pushback in the community.

Maxon-Kennelly said the committee will revisit the policy again next spring.