The infamous homework policy of Lexington High School. The funny thing is that this homework policy is not so ambiguous, at least it does not have to be, especially regarding no homework weekends.

“No homework” weekends are, supposedly, weekends where teachers are not allowed to assign homework. To gain a better understanding of this, I perused the LHS Student Handbook 2020-2021. And to my surprise, I found nothing. In fact, the handbook is outdated regarding the policy. For example, it says that “homework will not be completed during school vacations that occur within the academic year.” This may have been true two years ago, but that is no longer the case. 

Since I do not have any official basis for my knowledge regarding the homework policy, I will have to rely on my personal understanding of it (which is likely to be inaccurate. If only it was written somewhere, maybe somewhere like a student handbook? If only). So, I interpret “no homework” weekends as follows: a teacher is not allowed to assign any homework that is due on the Monday after the “no homework” weekend. Seems like there should not be any issues, right?

False. Locked in an already time-crunched schedule, many teachers still assign work over the designated no homework weekend, except they make assignments due on Tuesday. It technically abides by the rules, but the “no homework” weekends are essentially nullified because the work that is due is often so excessive that unless you are superhuman, you have no choice but to work on it over the weekend. 

An important thing to remember here, is that this is not the teachers’ fault: their job is to educate, and it is often the confinements in which they are placed that prevent them from  leaving students with truly “no homework” weekends. All this tells us is that the “no homework” weekend policy is broken because it is cleverly circumvented in practice and poorly enforced. I, along with many of my peers, do not believe that it has made any difference in our academic lives. In fact, it may have even left a negative impact on our student life by creating confusion over the homework policy. The current policy has not solved the problems it set to solve: relieving students’ stress. 

So what do I propose? I urge the school committee to find a solution that is more than a facade and more than a “push it under the rug” gesture. And to students, I urge you to communicate with school administrators because it changes nothing for you to complain to each other without raising your concerns to those with power. And to teachers, I do not have anything to say except to keep on educating and taking on one of the toughest (and most underrated tasks) in society.