Well, after only the first month of school we’ve already had 4 homework assignments…for the parents.
- The first day of school brings the myriad of (redundant) forms that we have to fill out for each child every year, regardless of whether the information has changed even one iota from last year, regardless of whether it is the same for both (or multiple) children, except for their names and dates of birth. Here’s an idea: Let us do it online! They let us send lunch money online now, and they send us school notices online as well (so that we have to subject our own printers to wear and tear, use our own ink and paper to print out notices and forms. . .but I digress). Why can’t we have our New School Year Forms online, then update only what needs updating and email them to the school? Time saved: approximately 2-5 hours (or more, depending on how many children you have and how complex their medical histories, etc. might be).
- The next assignment we got was this: In a million words or less, write an essay about your child. Enough said.
- Then, a Current Events homework assignment came home for the student, which says the parent must assist them in these projects. Weekly. If it can’t be done without the parents’ help, clearly it is too advanced for most 6th graders to undertake. To me, this translates to: Not Appropriate Homework for a Sixth Grader. Am I wrong?
- The Leaf Project. Anyone who has lived in my town for the past decade or two (at least) is familiar with this one. Now, I have to be fair: it isn’t explicitly stated that parents have any involvement, but hey, it’s not like the 6th graders can drive themselves around looking for the 20 different types of leaves they need!
How do you feel about getting homework from your tween-agers’ teachers?
Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker 
You have NAILED this one, Karen! The forms make me nuts. I now have two kids in two separate schools and EACH one has 20 forms to fill out. As for the homework, my son is dyslexic so every reading assignment is a ‘shared experience’ for us!
Now wait… you missed one more “mom assignment” … How ’bout those supply lists? Remember when we were in school, we got a block of notebook paper, maybe a spiral notebook or two, a couple of pens/pencils/highlighters (the package was most likely split between our sibs) and if we were lucky a straightforward calculator. Yeah.. not so much anymore! My daughters list alone went over 300 (of course including a 150.00 calculator that was a must have on the list). I mean really…. is it necessary? Think about it for about 250 we could buy them netbooks and negate most of the paper/notebooks/folders … oh and the damn calculator!!! … I’m just saying….
OMG! How could I have forgotten the SUPPLY list?? And after you spend all that money, 9 times out of 10, they need different stuff from what was on the list for some classes, plus they always run out of the entire year’s bounty of supplies by mid-October (one way this happens is that my daughter is very generous to other less well equipped students with her supplies)! And right on cue, Isabelle just told me she is out of pencils already and needs me to buy more. OY!