The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

The War on Workload

Too many assignments or too many distractions?

Last October, stress took over. The junior class was overwhelmed with the amount of homework they were getting. Junior grade reps noticed the struggle and decided to conduct a study to determine if the complaints were reasonable.

They found that the ratio of homework between classes was unbalanced and though some complaints were justified, the average amount of time being spent on work lined up with what the teachers were expecting.

“We noticed a big increase in stress in our grade” class rep Hana Neutz said, “as grade reps, we had a lot of power in the situation as well as the resources to figure out what was happening”.

The first attempt at a study failed due to the lack of stud participation.

As the year progressed, the grade continued struggling, trying to balance sports, homework and standardized test preparation.

After the first unsuccessful trial, the reps needed a way to make their study more effective.

This time, science teacher Mikayla Patella-Buckley got involved to help gather more information and gain the attention of the faculty and staff.

The reps decided to conduct a survey. The survey worked like this: at the end of three different five day weeks, the junior grade we asked to record the amount of time they spent on homework for each class that week. This time they were able to record significant data.

“We got the information, compiled it, and compared classes against each other,” Patella-Buckley said. “Then we compared it against what the teachers thought was the goal for how much time each student should be spending.”

The results for some classes were expected.

“I assumed the heavy hitters were going to be biology and history, and that’s correct,” Patella-Buckley said. She was surprised, however, by the lack of homework in language classes.

“The language department is dramatically shifting their approach to work, giving almost no homework at all,” she said.

“On one hand, there’s people doing 12 hours of math homework each week. On the other, in language and English there were people doing only 0-2 hours,” Neutz said.

Despite the discrepancy between classes, students and teachers were somewhat in agreement.

“The mode of students did match up with what the teachers thought the amount of time being spent should be.” Patella-Buckley said. However, there were still students doing way more homework than expected.

The biggest surprise was the inconsistency in the amounts of homework.

“The work load would come in waves” said Patella Buckley.

“One week kids are doing this small amount of homework, but the next they’re doing 10 hours extra.” A balanced load is very important in keeping the stress levels low, but “some of these kids were spending 20 hours a week.” Neutz said. So far, not much improvement has been seen.

“There’s more awareness, which is always the first step, but I haven’t seen systemic changes,” said Patella-Buckley. “Could we get there someday? Sure, maybe.” Improvement and change in a school system takes time, but hopefully U Prep will continue the path to a more consistent workload.

By Sydney Hurst