Around 250 Western students participated in a survey during their social studies class over the past few weeks. The survey asked questions about homework load, group projects, and summer assignments.

Nearly 54% of respondents reported more than 2 hours of homework each night and the majority of students agreed that homework helps them prepare for class lessons. 60% of the students also reported spending more than 4 hours on each of their summer homework assignments.

There has been some speculation that this survey is the introduction of a new homework policy for the school and the county.

When asked whether this new policy would affect the actual workload assigned to students, John Hobson, a social studies teacher at Western, and a member of a countywide committee to reform homework policy, said, “I think there are a lot of ideas being discussed. One of them certainly is time, but another one is purpose.”

If a new homework policy is adopted, Hobson said that it likely would not be implemented until the 2016-2017 school year.