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Homework during summer vacation prompts lawsuit
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal ^ | Jan. 19, 2005 | JAMAAL ABDUL-ALIM

Posted on 01/20/2005 5:10:29 AM PST by Obadiah

In an effort to teach educators a lesson about the importance of summer vacation, a Whitnall High School student and his father have filed a lawsuit against the boy's math teacher that seeks to bar teachers from requiring homework over the summer.

In the lawsuit, 17-year-old Peer Larson and his father, Bruce Larson of Hales Corners, argue that school officials have no legal authority to make students do homework over the summer because the state-required 180-day school year is over.

"It is poor public policy," Bruce Larson argues in the lawsuit. "These students are still children, yet they are subjected to increasing pressure to perform to ever-higher standards in numerous theaters.

"Come summer, they need a break."

(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: education; homework; lawsuit; lazykids; loserpays; pspl; stupidparents
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To: elli1
"What about a kid who moves into the district two days before the start of classes & didn't know about, didn't do the 'summer homework'? Does he get an 'F'? Is he denied enrollment in a class that req'd summer homework on the basis that he didn't do that homework?"

Legally he would have to be either excused from the work or given ample opportunity to make it up.

"I'm with the parent & kid on this one. The teachers certainly 'work' on the basis of a contract with specified calendar limits. Moreover, if the kid wanted to go to summer school, he could enroll in 'summer school', for which he would accumulate extra credit towards graduation. And finally, a 16-17 year old kid in high school honors calculus could damn well spend the summer taking classes at a local university & be earning credits towards a college degree. This is a clear case of the public school overstepping its bounds and IMO, they can go fly a kite."

Let me repeat, this is just like regular homework. I, speaking as a student myself, actually endorse the idea before taking some advanced classes. From what I hear, teaching some of the AP classes would be impossible without it.
121 posted on 01/21/2005 9:59:14 PM PST by AVNevis (You are never too young to stand up for America)
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To: N. Theknow

"If you don't do the homework do they send you back to the grade you just finished? To whom is the work turned in, the former teacher or the new teacher?"

From my experience, if a student doesn't do it he is deducted points from his grade. And the work is turned in to the new teacher and part of the first semester grade.


122 posted on 01/21/2005 10:01:25 PM PST by AVNevis (You are never too young to stand up for America)
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To: Dan from Michigan

Hey, How are you doing?Haven't seen you around for awhile.


123 posted on 01/22/2005 6:43:44 AM PST by painter (We celebrate liberty which comes from God not from government.)
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To: painter
Hey, How are you doing?

I'm snowed in. #$@^^@

8 inches of that flaky white stuff, and still coming down.

124 posted on 01/22/2005 8:31:13 AM PST by Dan from Michigan ("I can't name a single accomplishment of Debbie Stabenow." - Rep. Leon Drolet)
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To: shezza

I saw this kind of stuff every year when I was in college. Some of the instructors had the horrible nerve to assign homework the first day of class. You wouldn't believe the fuss put up by some of the students. The horror!! Being expected to work on the first day of class is like being boiled in oil, I guess. I would piss them off by asking, "What do you want, breakfast in bed? If being assigned homework is such an awful thing, what the hell are you even doing here? Do the world a favor, disenroll now, and go work at McDonald's."


125 posted on 01/22/2005 12:11:26 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Gun-control is leftist mind-control.)
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To: Obadiah
If homework is assigned during summer vacation, then the teacher should be required to at least keep office hours during the summer for students that need help. They shouldn't just assign work and then walk away from it for 3 months solid.

Also, the class is not a core-curriculum class, it's honors pre-calculus. Since it is an honors class, it isn't wrong to expect a student a step up and do something above the bare minimum. If dad and son are that pissed off about it, then disenroll him from the class and have him do something else. This shouldn't be a court case.

126 posted on 01/22/2005 12:44:01 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Gun-control is leftist mind-control.)
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To: Tax-chick

Well, some people do get excited ... in fact, just about everyone has some issue that he gets in a raucous fluster over occasionally. But mostly, people are trying to live up to high standards, I believe.

How true. But it does depend on the nature of one's statements and how they are represented. I love to seek out the "right-minded" people, those who are trying to do good deeds in this world, but who are not ones who blame others for their own problems, just good old down-home type people. I actually did talk with a liberal the other day who is one of those kind of people. She runs a flower business and puts forth her best effort to please her customers. The funny thing is that she turned out to be more anti-illegal immigration than any conservative I've ever seen (but she did stop short of blaming them for everything).
I believe that your highness, the Nuclear Niceness One is one of those down-home people. :)


127 posted on 01/22/2005 4:13:17 PM PST by moog
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To: Blurblogger

Thanks for your thoughts. I perceived your passion for teaching in your posts upthread. I subbed at mostly the HS level about 3 years and taught one year 7th grade special ed, Mild/Moderate disability (in most cases which pertained to hi-sugar diets and broken homes and kids brought up without boundaries.)

I salute your efforts. Yes, I do have a passion for teaching that only grows with each successive year. I may become one of those people who teaches until he's 70. I am doubly lucky that I live in the city where I teach and thus I can be of service to those in my own neighborhood. I am blessed every year with good kids and wonderful parents of them.


128 posted on 01/22/2005 4:16:49 PM PST by moog
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To: moog

My late grandmother would have translated your "down-home people" as "plain dirt folks," and that was a compliment. So thank you! I like to think I can live up to that, at least most of the time - there's nothing like a crowd of children to give you a kick in your pretensions :-).

It sounds as if you're an excellent teacher, and a fine member of your community! (Do you sense the Molasses Miasma of Niceness there?) Just kidding, that was a sincere observation, based on your comments here.


129 posted on 01/22/2005 5:32:10 PM PST by Tax-chick (Wielder of the Dread Words of Power, "Bless your heart, honey!")
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To: GOPrincess
I know this thread is a couple of days old, but I was just given a news article about my daughter's class that I just had to share. It was published yesterday, but it's not on line with the paper, so I scanned it.

Click on the image to see 230 Kb high quality scan on article.

Click on the image to see 230 Kb high quality scan of article.

130 posted on 01/23/2005 11:29:48 AM PST by DocRock
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Comment #131 Removed by Moderator

Comment #132 Removed by Moderator

To: Floyd R Turbo
Then there is the child's perspective, also. Some children come home crying every day because the other children pick on them. My daughter had problems with the "cool" kids picking on her every day. Every day my child cried for not fitting into the "cliques", the taunts, the whispers and snickers as she passed. What was her crime? It was being smart.

Now she has friends and they have a blast doing what they enjoy... academics. This has nothing to do with being an underage misfit among older students, ego or being "under-parented". It has everything to do with my child's happiness.
133 posted on 01/23/2005 12:03:57 PM PST by DocRock
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Comment #134 Removed by Moderator

To: AVNevis
The point is this: The Larsons argue that if teachers want to assign homework during the summer vacation, the homework should be voluntary and not factored into the student's grade without the student's consent.

The entire argument pivots on the whether or not teachers have legal authority to require schoolwork during summer 'vacation'. Or to put it another way, do teachers have the authority to create defacto year round school, school that is absent classroom instruction for roughly 3 months of that 'year'?

I, speaking as a student myself, actually endorse the idea before taking some advanced classes. From what I hear, teaching some of the AP classes would be impossible without it.

Not to be a smartass, but that is what is called 'hearsay'. I would need a lot of documentation that attempts to prove that a boat load of summer homework is anything other than 'busywork'. Without formal classroom instruction--that is real 'teaching', I fail to see how assigning 2-3 months of homework actually accomplishes much of anything, especially in mathematics classes...or anything that can't be accomplished by the 'refresher' that is a standard part of teaching post-summer vacation. As to the AP argument, isn't the amount of material to be covered the reason why there are classes in Algebra I and Algebra II? Or the English classeS requirement for graduation? Or formal 'summer school' classes? Or magnet schools?

135 posted on 01/24/2005 7:53:10 AM PST by elli1
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To: AppyPappy

How can you have homework over the summer? Last years classes are done, and next years classes have not started yet.


136 posted on 01/24/2005 8:15:55 AM PST by RobRoy ("I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.")
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To: Blurblogger; AVNevis

The school year starts the first day of school and not one minute before.

Nuff said.


137 posted on 01/24/2005 8:18:52 AM PST by RobRoy ("I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.")
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To: RobRoy

Reading assignments. Our kids do homework over the summer to keep their minds from turning into jelly.


138 posted on 01/24/2005 8:24:39 AM PST by AppyPappy (If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem.)
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To: AppyPappy
Reading assignments. Our kids do homework over the summer to keep their minds from turning into jelly.

(sarcasm) The same way you do you IRS income tax forms to keep YOUR mind from turning to jelly.(sarcasm end)

Busy work, is busy work, no matter if it is homework or government paperwork, it is all designed strip you of your freetime, and by extention your freedom.

139 posted on 01/24/2005 8:27:59 AM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: AppyPappy

>>Reading assignments. Our kids do homework over the summer to keep their minds from turning into jelly.<<

Yes, but it's not part of next years classes. They haven't started yet. My kids had all sorts of "assignemets" during the summer, but they were in no way connected to the public schools they attended. The public school does not assign homework or assignments until the first day of school. They can't assign retroactively. This whole thing is just silly.

On the other hand, I would be in favor of year-round school. Then, if there was a summer class, then the class would be authorised to assign homework. But that is not the system we have now.

I wouldn't sue, however. I would merely tell my child they were under no obligation to do the work during the summer and I would write a note excusing them from the work. For starters, if the teacher got snooty about it, I would explain that the summer is the time for ME to assign my children assignments. He/she can have them beginning the first day of school.


140 posted on 01/24/2005 8:41:24 AM PST by RobRoy
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