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Stoughton committee to publicize new homework policy draft and gather feedback
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Summary
After debate over process and public outreach, the School Committee voted 5–0 to have the superintendent publicize a proposed homework policy (grade-based guidance and daily reading expectations) and solicit community feedback through school councils, social media and translated materials.
Stoughton — The School Committee voted unanimously Feb. 10 to instruct the superintendent to publicize a draft K–12 homework policy and collect community input before the committee considers adoption.
"We created a policy... we pretty much recommend homework from K to 12 in different levels," Jillian DeStefano of the policy working group said while presenting the draft, which replaces an earlier "grid" with grade-by-grade guidance and places emphasis on coordination among teacher teams. The policy recommends nightly reading across K–12 and provides time guidance: kindergarten — no assigned homework but 20 minutes reading; grades 1–2 — 20 minutes; grades 3–5 — 30 minutes; grades 6–8 — 60 minutes per team plus 20 minutes nightly reading; high school expectations to vary by course level.
Discussion at the meeting focused on community outreach, accessibility and process. Miss Powers warned that pre-meeting outreach by working-group members could raise open-meeting-law concerns; the superintendent agreed to seek counsel and the committee directed the superintendent to publicize the draft through school councils, the district Facebook page, weekly emails and translated communications.
The motion to "appoint the superintendent to conduct outreach to receive feedback on the proposed draft homework policy IKB" was moved by Jen Sears and seconded by Jillian DeStefano. The roll-call vote was recorded as 5–0 in favor.
Committee members requested broad engagement with families, translated materials for ELL households, and options for additional public comment sessions timed to increase attendance. The committee also discussed scheduling a focused "homework policy" agenda item at a future meeting so that the public could address the single topic in depth rather than during general public comment.
What's next: Administration will publicize the draft and report back to the School Committee with collected feedback and recommended next steps before any final policy vote.
