Students are constantly faced with an abundance of work that often accompanies strict expectations, rubrics, time constraints, and policies. Due dates are set, grades are firm, and many of these standards are implemented for students the instant they enter middle school. While at a first glance, these policies may seem overly burdensome for people just beginning their academic career, they’re made for the benefit of the student. From encouraging excellence to teaching students about the importance of productivity, these rules aim to allow middle schoolers to discover how to advocate for themselves, prepare for the future, and strive for improvement.
“Poly Prep’s [work] policy has evolved over the years, and, as it should, because all policy should evolve,” Michal Hershkovitz shared in an interview with The Polygon. As the assistant head of school, academics at Poly, she collaborates with department chairs, Interim Head of School John Rankin, and the Academic Programming Committee to discuss and establish new grading, homework, and late policies that apply to all grades. According to Hershkovitz, academic policies “particularly changed during Covid,” to adapt for virtual schooling. Dan Doughty, the head of middle school, stated that one of these Covid altered policies for middle school was “a free reading requirement, which we had before Covid and was taken away.” After being reinstated, this requirement was changed to accommodate for the different grade levels. “We added back that [seventh and eighth grade] kids are expected to do 20 minutes of free reading, and fifth and six, 15. We really want them to be getting into the habit of reading, and reading things that they like,” added Doughty.
Additionally, the “20-minute rule” for middle schoolers has been altered to adapt for the student’s age. From 2019-2023, the “20-minute rule” meant that students had to work on homework assignments for no longer than the mandatory 20 minutes. After this was completed, a student could then present their teacher with what work was completed and receive full credit, as long as a parent confirmed their efforts with a signature. However, from the 2021 school year onwards, teachers began to be more expectant, and this policy wasn’t necessarily recognized or strictly adhered to. Now, the official middle school policy reads that “students can expect to have 20 minutes of homework per class when in fifth and sixth grade, and 30 when in seventh and eighth.”
Doughty shared that this change was made to encourage students to understand that 20 or 30 minutes of time should be what they’re spending per class. If the work is taking shorter or longer than this, he continued, students should then utilize this knowledge to advocate for themselves and “plan ahead, because sometimes there’s a bigger project or test coming up, so they [should] spread out their time over a few days.”
These policies don’t aim to benefit students only during their time in middle school. The work habits internalized by homework policies ideally allow students to smoothly transition into higher, more challenging grade levels. Preparation for high school, Doughty said, was “why we increased the amount of [homework time] in seventh and eighth grade.”
Hershkovitz shared that the necessity of rubrics on graded assignments was to encourage students to develop their academic skill sets. She stated that grades alone share nothing about what a student should improve on and can often “promote this kind of instrumental approach to grades.” She continued, “that’s why we also instituted rubrics. Rubrics were a very important piece of the policies we enacted in the last four years so that grading is transparent.” Grades can serve as a “snapshot of what you have accomplished in this course right now.” Identifying a student’s growing area inspires further conversations to be: “where do you want to go from here,” instead of: “why am I stuck here?” explained Hershkovitz.
Doughty and Hershkovitz agree that adhering to standards isn’t just for the benefit of the teacher, a good grade, or to maintain academic integrity. The purpose of these policies is to better the student’s work ethic and understanding of self so that they can blossom into an environment in which they can thrive and succeed.
