Brentwood Schools Homework (house, middle school, move)

[gooz71]

Can anyone confirm that Brentwood schools tend to give 1-2 hours of homework each night
(specifically Brentwood middle and Brentwood high school)?

I have heard homework load is really heavy and now concerned. Hoping this is not true

[brentwoodgirl]

Brentwood High hasn't seemed that bad so far and my kids have taken hard class loads. I would say an hour or two most nights, but some nights they don't have any.

Brentwood Middle gives absolutely insane amounts of homework, esp in 8th grade. My kids had 4 hours of homework several nights a week, and sometimes even more. And they got an hour to work on it at school, which means the teachers were actually assigning 5 hours of homework.

I watched them do homework. They weren't playing on their phones or messing around. They were nose to the grindstone for 4+ hours. Sometimes I would tell them to stop and go to bed, but they would stress out and say they had to finish their homework.

I heard the homework issue was a big topic of conversation at the parent night, and that Dr Barkley said they were working on it. I will tell you that I won't let my 3rd child go through that. It's ridiculous. Even some of the high school teachers talked about the insane BMS homework at the BHS open house night.

It's my only complaint about BMS. We thought it was an amazing school.

[gooz71]

Originally Posted by brentwoodgirl

Brentwood High hasn't seemed that bad so far and my kids have taken hard class loads. I would say an hour or two most nights, but some nights they don't have any.

Brentwood Middle gives absolutely insane amounts of homework, esp in 8th grade. My kids had 4 hours of homework several nights a week, and sometimes even more. And they got an hour to work on it at school, which means the teachers were actually assigning 5 hours of homework.

I watched them do homework. They weren't playing on their phones or messing around. They were nose to the grindstone for 4+ hours. Sometimes I would tell them to stop and go to bed, but they would stress out and say they had to finish their homework.

I heard the homework issue was a big topic of conversation at the parent night, and that Dr Barkley said they were working on it. I will tell you that I won't let my 3rd child go through that. It's ridiculous. Even some of the high school teachers talked about the insane BMS homework at the BHS open house night.

It's my only complaint about BMS. We thought it was an amazing school.

Do you think you will send your 3rd child to a private school to reduce homework? I am just wondering what to do when we move there in June for school next year. I'm with you, I also don't want my son stressing out with so much homework (would be 7th grade). Right now he has maybe 30 minutes (at most) every night in the state we are in. I know there are studies that shows homework doesn't help anyway

[brentwoodgirl]

Originally Posted by gooz71

Do you think you will send your 3rd child to a private school to reduce homework? I am just wondering what to do when we move there in June for school next year. I'm with you, I also don't want my son stressing out with so much homework (would be 7th grade). Right now he has maybe 30 minutes (at most) every night in the state we are in. I know there are studies that shows homework doesn't help anyway

No, we're planning to send him to BMS. I'll just get more involved in pushing for a reasonable homework load.
You could call the school and ask to speak to Dr Barkley (principal) about the homework load. I'm sure he would be happy to discuss it with you.
My feeling is that it hit a boiling point with a lot of parents last year, and that this is something BMS will be working to make better, but I can't promise that.

You can also tour BMS and ask these kinds of questions.

And I agree, the studies have shown that it's counter productive to have that much homework.

[gooz71]

Originally Posted by brentwoodgirl

No, we're planning to send him to BMS. I'll just get more involved in pushing for a reasonable homework load.
You could call the school and ask to speak to Dr Barkley (principal) about the homework load. I'm sure he would be happy to discuss it with you.
My feeling is that it hit a boiling point with a lot of parents last year, and that this is something BMS will be working to make better, but I can't promise that.

You can also tour BMS and ask these kinds of questions.

And I agree, the studies have shown that it's counter productive to have that much homework.

Okay, thank you. I really appreciate your input.

[septimus]

homework has been a hot topic of conservation at School Board work sessions.

My son is another WCS middle school. He's in the "honors" level for every subject and his homework load has been pretty reasonable except this last week as he had a lot of projects all due yesterday. (end of term). Even that was less than 2 hours a night. Most nights it is under 30 minutes and it is a "heavy night" if gets to 45 min. All that said he's my "fast" kid. I could see his homework taking another kid 1+ hours.