Do high schools with minimal homework exist? What are they?

[Anonymous]

I would add that you should take any estimate of homework time with a grain of salt. I have two kids who went to the same school. One of them "never had homework." The other has an hour or two a night. And this is for middle school where they had the exact same courseload. Kids are different. Teachers are different.

[Anonymous]

Catholic high schools generally have a range of levels for the core classes. My daughter is at Bishop Ireton and some of her friends have a fairly light workload due to the classes they selected/qualified for. They can also choose to do a study hall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard that Burke actually has a decent homework load, I know I've heard that from at least one family and possibly at the open house.

Burke has a pretty harsh late homework policy in high school- anything turned in late is automatically marked down 50%.

Although I’d add there are quite a few study halls and free period built into the schedule at Burke. Our child is in high school there and we’ve found it’s not a huge homework load.

Burke students are a wide range of abilities so the same homework can be all completed in school by one kid, and another kid, it takes 3 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homeschool.

This is literally all homework.

...for the parents too...

[Anonymous]

Sidwell

[Anonymous]

If you don't mind a small school that is COMPLETELY different, the Sycamore School in Rosslyn is 5-12 with a mastery-based curriculum instead of grades. No homework in middle school, very light in high school, no APs.

It only works for a niche group, but it's great at what it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell

Haha. Nice joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would add that you should take any estimate of homework time with a grain of salt. I have two kids who went to the same school. One of them "never had homework." The other has an hour or two a night. And this is for middle school where they had the exact same courseload. Kids are different. Teachers are different.

Very good point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is not an A student but ups a pretty solid B student at a Christian K-8. She’s in 6th now and does about 20/30 mins of homework a night.
She was an A student in 4th and 5th but MS is definitely harder.

Do you see the word "high" in the title?

[Anonymous]

Unclear what is meant by “minimal.”

But it is absolutely true that people on here tend to view hours of homework per night as a proxy for school quality. When, in reality, activity often does not equal achievement.

It is a continuum. And will vary by student. But it is safe to say that Field/Burke are toward the lower end. Homework, yes, but not a soul crushing amount.

Personally, I am deeply skeptical of the idea that 3 hours per night every night is intrinsically a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unclear what is meant by “minimal.”

But it is absolutely true that people on here tend to view hours of homework per night as a proxy for school quality. When, in reality, activity often does not equal achievement.

It is a continuum. And will vary by student. But it is safe to say that Field/Burke are toward the lower end. Homework, yes, but not a soul crushing amount.

Personally, I am deeply skeptical of the idea that 3 hours per night every night is intrinsically a good thing.

Agreed. This varies with kid and chosen course selection, and our eyes, 3 hours of homework a night is not intrinsically a good thing.

Given that, and knowing our kid (who is a bit of a perfectionist) when we looked at HS this past fall (graduating out of a K-8), Burke, Field, SSFS, SAES, and Bullis were in the ballpark homework-wise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unclear what is meant by “minimal.”

But it is absolutely true that people on here tend to view hours of homework per night as a proxy for school quality. When, in reality, activity often does not equal achievement.

It is a continuum. And will vary by student. But it is safe to say that Field/Burke are toward the lower end. Homework, yes, but not a soul crushing amount.

Personally, I am deeply skeptical of the idea that 3 hours per night every night is intrinsically a good thing.

Agreed. This varies with kid and chosen course selection, and our eyes, 3 hours of homework a night is not intrinsically a good thing.

Given that, and knowing our kid (who is a bit of a perfectionist) when we looked at HS this past fall (graduating out of a K-8), Burke, Field, SSFS, SAES, and Bullis were in the ballpark homework-wise.

This is the list I'd come up with too. But even at some of the other schools - you can limit homework dramatically by not being in the highest rigor courses. This usually can't be avoided for English/History - but choice of language (Latin) and taking the most basic math/science course will greatly reduce homework at a Big 3.

[Anonymous]

Field is known for establishing a homework/downtime dichotomy that feels reasonable for kids and families who value that. They also have impressive
college outcomes.

[Anonymous]

The only "benefit" from 3 hours of homework a night is toughening up students to do large volumes of tedious work on a tight deadline. No way teachers can come up with meaningful, focused homework at that rate, and students burn out too much to retain very much.

There is also the opportunity cost of giving up all the other teenage stuff they could be doing to have a life.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on class selection. For instance, a student taking all honors and APs at Bullis will have more homework that a student taking just the regular track classes at Sidwell. (Some of the regular track classes still will have a decent amount obviously), but rigor and homework is more a question of class selection than school much of the time.