N.Y. school district considering student proposal to eliminate homework

A New York school district is considering getting rid of homework after a petition from elementary school students.

Rockland County is mulling a proposal from a pair of fifth-graders who, citing stress from homework, started a petition and presented it to the district, according to NBC New York. 

“I got stressed by homework a lot, so I just — it took me a minute of thinking — I want to get rid of homework,” Niko Keelie, a student at Farley Elementary School in Stony Point, N.Y., told NBC. 

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The district listened and is now rethinking whether homework is the most productive way students can learn.

The school’s assistant superintendent, Kris Felicello, said the district had already discussed changes to its homework policies and said it doesn’t want to present this as a “ban” on homework. Felicello said the district is reviewing multiple options.

The hope is to have a new homework policy installed by next school year, per NBC.

“I hope that kids would go home and they would read and they would discover things that they’re interested in doing, and go on YouTube and figure out how to play the ukulele, or go and research what’s going on with Space X, or talk to their friends or get outside and play,” Felicello said.

The reimagining of homework policy is part of a national trend, according to the report.

Many schools have either eliminated or significantly reduced the amount of homework assigned to students, citing studies that question whether the practice helps elementary-school students learn.