homework opt out

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Raising Kids

Yes, You Can Opt Your Kids Out of Homework—Here’s How

One mom says her kids haven't been doing homework for years. Here's how she opted them out and what experts say.

Guille Faingold / Stocksy

When Juliana Porter thinks about the feeling that homework induces, one word comes to mind: dread. With afternoon and evening time constraints, the North Carolina mom of three wants her kids to have some time to relax and unwind, so homework is often pushed until during or after dinnertime.  

“The subject we’ve found to be the most challenging is math, in large part because strategies and ‘show your work’ are often required to get correct answers,” says Porter. “But as parents who are not in the class to learn new methods, we’re not able to help. Or we can help, but it’s not the correct method being taught and adds to our child’s confusion. These at-home cram sessions usually end in frustration for both child and parent.”

The Porter family’s experience isn’t unique. Research published in the Child & Youth Care Forum found more than 25% of parents and kids say homework “always or often interferes with family time and creates a power struggle,” while more than 36% of kids say homework sometimes forces them to get less sleep in grades 3 to 6. According to Stanford research , 56% of students surveyed say homework is a primary source of stress.

While many families do their best to help their children complete homework with as little frustration as possible, my family has chosen a different option: to simply skip it. And I don’t mean just skipping it on the nights it's difficult either. For four years, my family has totally opted out of homework, which I’ve learned doesn’t produce enough benefits for the stress it causes. And I want other parents to know that opting out of homework is an option for their kids, too.

Homework: How to Opt Out

If your child goes to an open admissions public school, opting out of homework can be something you consider. While it may be a particularly good choice if homework is causing major household stress, you don’t have to wait until your child is miserable to act if they (or you) would simply prefer to spend the time in other ways. There are no legal requirements that students complete work outside of school hours and, for many children, the actual determinants of homework outweigh the theoretical benefits. 

To opt out, I send a note to each of my children's teachers at the beginning of the year letting them know that my child will not be completing homework, that their overall grade should not be impacted, and that they should not be penalized in any way for not turning in homework assignments.

I also let them know that we're committed to our kids' education, that we read together most evenings, and that, if my child is struggling or needs extra support in any subject, we're happy to brainstorm solutions to help them get the practice they need. Though no teachers have pushed back yet (and several have told us they wish they were not required to assign homework and that more families knew they could opt out), we have a small folder of research on the detriments of homework that we could share with an administrator if needed. 

Opting out has worked well for our family but implicit bias might mean that other families don't receive the same neutral or positive reaction that our white family does. 

"Many minoritized and historically marginalized families never consider opting out of homework, even when they know that it's not meaningful," says Sequoya Mungo, Ph.D. , an educational equity consultant and co-founder of BrownLight Inc. , a company helping to create positive diversity and inclusion results in educational, nonprofit, and corporate environments. "When white families make these types of educational choices, they are viewed as forward-thinking and seen as advocates for their children's education. Teachers and others often think that they're being proactive and identifying other enrichment opportunities for their kids. When non-middle class and non-white families opt out, the assumption is that parents don't value education and don't want to, or are unable to, help their kids with homework.” 

According to Dr. Mungo, coming with research or policy can be helpful as even some school level administrators are unaware that opting out is within your rights as parents. “The more prepared you are, the more likely you are to not be met with pushback.” 

Why Families May Want to Opt Out of Homework

Since homework is so prevalent, many assume it's vital, or at least important, to kids' academic growth. But the reality is murkier. "There's really no good evidence that homework completion positively impacts kids' academic growth or achievement," says Samantha Cleaver, Ph.D. , a reading interventionist and author of Raising an Active Reader: The Case for Reading Aloud to Engage Elementary School Youngsters . 

A 2006 meta-analysis of homework and achievement found moderate correlation in middle school and little correlation in elementary school, while there was negative correlation (that is, more homework means less learning) in third grade and below.

While research shows homework can help high school kids improve grades, test results, and likelihood of going to college, the reality is academic pressures in the U.S. have increased over the last two decades, and so too has the amount of homework that kids are assigned. The National Education Association (NEA) recommends no more than 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level, but that's often not what's happening. According to a 2015 study, elementary school students are being assigned more than is recommended , sometimes almost triple the amount. And, often, even when educators are assigning homework they think falls in this window, it can take some students, particularly those who are “behind” already or who have learning disabilities, much more time to complete. 

Excessive homework can negatively impact sleep, mental health, and stress levels. It’s also important to note homework is an issue of equity, since not every child has the same opportunities at home. "When kids are doing work in school, the classroom environment serves as somewhat of an equalizer,'' says Dr. Mungo. "Kids have access to the same teacher and generally the same resources within the classroom setting. At home, kids have different environments, different access to resources, and different levels of support." This means kids with less support and more challenges often end up getting lower grades or being penalized for not turning in work for reasons totally outside their control.

Making Change on Homework

Parents who don't want to be the only ones opting out can work to change the homework culture at their school. Consider reaching out to your principal about your homework concerns or connecting with other parents or the PTA to help build support for your cause.

And if you do opt out, don't be shy about letting other parents know that's what you've chosen to do. Sometimes just knowing there is an option and that others have opted out successfully can help families decide what's right for them.

What to Do With the Extra Time

When Porter thinks about what a life without homework would be like, she envisions a much more relaxed evening routine. “I imagine a scenario where my kids can do their after-school activities, read more, get outside, and generally just decompress from the daily eight-hour grind that is school with no more dread and no more crying,” she says.

If you opt out of homework and find your family with more time for other sorts of learning, leisure, or adventure, be thoughtful how you’ll structure your new routine and talk with your kids about the value of doing nothing, the importance of family time, or how to spend their time in ways that matter to them.

And if you want to be sure they're getting in some valuable post-school learning, consider repurposing your previous homework time to reading with your kids. "Reading aloud has benefits long after your kids can read on their own," says Dr. Cleaver. "Encourage them to choose books about subjects they're interested in, snuggle up together, and enjoy watching them learn through active reading."

But reading isn’t the only way to reap benefits. "There are lots of things that kids can do after school that will positively impact their growth and development that don't involve sitting down to do more of the work they've done at school,'' says Dr. Cleaver. "Time to decompress through play or relaxation isn't just fun, it actually helps kids' brains and bodies relax, making them more open to learning."

Related Articles

8 rights parents don’t have in American public schools

by: Hank Pellissier | Updated: August 23, 2023

Print article

Do you want the school to fire a terrible teacher? Hoping to take your child out of school for an educational two month vacation? Trying to opt out your child from the school’s anti-discrimination course? You might be surprised by what parent rights you don’t have at your child’s school.

Physical discipline

Medical shots, food allergies, school dress code regulations, diversity and tolerance, dangerous students, gifted children, homes nearby.

Homes for rent and sale near schools

Why your neighborhood school closes for good – and what to do when it does

What should I write my college essay about?

What the #%@!& should I write about in my college essay?

How longer recess fuels child development

How longer recess fuels stronger child development

Yes! Sign me up for updates relevant to my child's grade.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up!

Server Issue: Please try again later. Sorry for the inconvenience

clock This article was published more than  7 years ago

Too much homework? Some parents are just opting out.

It was a crystallizing moment for Sara Youngblood-Ochoa. She was sitting with her first-grade son last winter as he struggled to do “extra credit” homework after a long day at school. Getting frustrated, she snapped at him. He cried.

“I looked at him and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ He said no, and I said, ‘I don’t either.’ ” And that was the end of homework for her 6-year-old.

She knew he was doing fine in school, so they just stopped doing the packets of worksheets that came home every week. “It took a load off our afternoons and made it easier for him to do after-school activities that he wanted to do,” said the Chicago-area mother. “If there’s something our son is struggling in, we’ll absolutely do the work. But after eight hours at a desk, to make him sit down and do more seems silly.”

After a summer of camps, freedom and running around outside, the transition back to school can be tough for any child — or parent. Add to that the scads of homework sent back with kids to complete before the next day, and parents can find themselves torn between wanting to encourage children to complete their work and wanting them to get exercise, play, just be a kid. And so for some parents, homework, particularly for kids in the younger grades, has become a big, fat zero. No more worksheets and reading logs. Other parents stop all homework if it takes longer than 10 or 15 minutes, believing the assignments should be a simple review of what was learned in school, not an hours-long process to struggle through. The conversation about banning homework, especially for young children, appears to be growing in popularity, even among teachers themselves. When a second-grade teacher in Texas recently sent a letter home explaining that she no longer would give homework, the letter went viral. Most important to parents, studies show that homework for younger children doesn’t actually correlate with improved school performance, and in fact, can hinder learning .

Texas teacher stops giving homework. The Internet gives her an A.

Homework, in other words, is really a sore subject.

When Jeanne Hargett’s youngest son started kindergarten in Arlington Public Schools last year, he was given weekly homework packets. “We just didn’t do it,” she said. “Honestly, he’s an active child. And I really feel like after asking him to sit on his bottom for most of the day, and asking him to come home and do it again, is not fair. I want him to go outside and exercise, look at bunnies and bugs and crawl around in the grass.” She said he didn’t get “dinged” for not doing the homework, and explained her stance to his teacher, but she is worried about first grade. “I’m hearing they give rewards to the entire class if everyone does their homework. That puts pressure on these 6-year-olds.”

That lack of free playtime is what most parents argue is missing when children are forced to come home and review what they did at school by doing worksheets. “It’s really important, especially for young kids, to play. Playing is a cornerstone for learning,” said Erica Reischer , a clinical psychologist and author of the book “ What Great Parents Do .” “Playing is learning. That’s it. Parents need to protect that space.”

But what happens when parents simply stop forcing their kids to do homework? For those interviewed here, they explained their reasoning to teachers and principals and say they were mostly met with support, and their children didn’t fall behind. “There’s a long tradition of homework, and a lot of passion behind it from parents and teachers,” Reischer said. “It’s what we do. So it feels a little scary to let that go… It shouldn’t be a crazy idea that elementary school shouldn’t have homework.”

Of course, not everyone is ditching homework. For older students in particular, homework often has a purpose, including learning about time management and solidifying complicated lessons. Jonathan Brand, headmaster of Chelsea Academy in Front Royal, Va., said his school has general guidelines about homework amounts, even for older students. “We lower the homework requirement in younger grades,” he said. In grades 4 and 5, their youngest, teachers try to give no more than 30 minutes per night. “We’re very careful about the kind of homework assignments we give to students. The benefit they receive from homework diminishes significantly in the lower grades.”

Parents who are opting out are generally in a place of privilege, says Harris M. Cooper, a Duke University professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience, whose research often focuses on homework. “These are typically parents who have the resources and capacity to substitute their own choices of academic things to do after school.” For parents whose first language isn’t English, or parents who work long hours, homework can be a good resource and supplement to regular school days.

John Seelke, father to twin second-grade girls, and a former teacher who now works at the University of Maryland’s College of Education, said he’s torn about the homework issue at home. From a professional perspective, he knows there is sometimes too much emphasis put on homework, noting that research shows a disconnect between the amount of homework students are given and their success at school. “As a parent, though, I sort of like that my kids have something to work on,” he said. “In education, there’s a swing in the pendulum. First, the students get too much, especially in high school, with three to four hours a night. But then to swing completely in the other direction and say no homework?”

So he and his wife have set it up that the girls’ routine includes homework after school. If they have an activity at night, they can complete the work before school in the morning. “I also know that if my kids are struggling with something, we know what resources to go to because of my background,” he said. “I don’t know that every parent has those resources, especially if they are working two jobs or from another country. In some cases, for them, homework is a steady way of practice.”

In general, younger children’s homework shouldn’t last more than 10 to 20 minutes, Cooper said. “Parents should be watching their child, especially for signs of fatigue and frustration.” If they feel the homework is too much or inappropriate, “speak with the teacher. Because if enough parents have the same concern, a good educator will modify their practices.”

Annie Richman of Shaker Heights, Ohio, put that time limit on her children’s homework when they were young. “I think that’s enough time to focus” after a long day at school, she said. If her children ran out of time or got frustrated, Richman would write a note to the teacher. A former second-grade teacher herself, she rarely gave homework unless it was something that specifically needed to be done at home.

The policy in her children’s upper elementary school was 20 minutes of homework per teacher. But with four teachers, that added up. Plus they were told to read for 30 minutes and practice their instrument for 30 minutes. “So when are they going to eat dinner, have a bath and get to bed?” Richman asked. “It’s really important to rake the leaves, take responsibility for setting the table and play with friends.”

Cara Paiuk stopped her son’s homework last year , when he was in kindergarten at his school in West Hartford, Conn. She told his teacher, who was very receptive and didn’t seem bothered. As for this year? She’s going to watch what happens. “I think parents are the most challenging part for teachers, more than the kids, and I really try not to be a high-maintenance parent.”

That said, she felt last year that her young son should be spending his few hours after school with his younger sisters, instead of doing worksheets. “To see my children … playing together in the couple hours after school and before bedtime, that is so important for conflict resolution, learning how to play with different age groups,” she said. “To take time away from that to do homework doesn’t do it for me.”

Filed under:

• The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Nobody knows what the point of homework is

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work.

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats.

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed.

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.”

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation.

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.”

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler.

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school.

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.”

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.”

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework .

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework.

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do.

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it.

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time.

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.”

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications.

Will you support Vox today?

Millions rely on Vox’s journalism to understand the coronavirus crisis. We believe it pays off for all of us, as a society and a democracy, when our neighbors and fellow citizens can access clear, concise information on the pandemic. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive. Support from our readers helps us keep it free for everyone. If you have already made a financial contribution to Vox, thank you. If not, please consider making a contribution today from as little as $3.

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Social media platforms aren’t equipped to handle the negative effects of their algorithms abroad. Neither is the law.

The real science behind the billionaire pursuit of immortality, if you want to belong, find a third place, sign up for the newsletter today, explained, thanks for signing up.

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

Why do parents allow children to continue doing homework when they can just opt them out?

‘we are so conditioned to believe that we are in trouble if we don’t do our homework’, says one parent.

The short answer is, yes. Opting children out of homework is at the parents’ discretion.

Homework is back with a bang, bringing with it the familiar sense of dread for children and parents alike. It encroaches on precious and limited family time and it can establish an unhealthy work, rest and play balance in our children. You won’t often hear someone say to an adult, “do you know what you should do after a day’s work? You should go home and do some more work.”

So why, knowing this, do we allow children to continue doing homework? And can we, as parents, just opt them out?

The short answer is, yes. Opting children out of homework is at the parents’ discretion. But, as one parent pointed out, “we are so conditioned to believe that we are in trouble if we don’t do our homework”, that parents don’t take control as they can.

“Empathetically, life is busy and more children than ever before are struggling with anxiety and we need to prioritise wellbeing”, says a primary school principal and mother. However, there is strength in the parent voice, she explains, suggesting that parents considering opting their children out of homework “bring it to the parents association. Perhaps if feelings are common among the parents, we as a school community, could review the current homework policy so that it would reflect the needs of parents, children and teachers.

Emer McLysaght: Every time I travel abroad I am gripped by the fear that Ireland is making a fool of me

David McWilliams: The British act of genius that Brexit couldn’t kill

What has David Nucifora ever done for Irish rugby?

Here’s hoping household chores don’t include having to ask men to do them ‘properly’

“Teachers and principals need to remember that parents are the primary educators, as per our Constitution, and they can and should make decisions on what is best for their child.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said 'all policies and decisions regarding homework are school-based. Schools are free to have their own policy on homework'.

Marie Christie is a primary schoolteacher and a mother of two. She has chosen to opt her children completely out of homework. “I used not give an awful lot of homework. I don’t believe in it. I believe it’s extra work. Even when I had sixth class — let’s say if we were doing long division sums I would give them two. If you can do two, you can do 10.”

Marie says if a child can learn tables, and do their reading, that should be the priority, but adds that there is “a new school of thought saying, that’s not how you do it”.

“Nobody knows what goes on at home for children. You have children sitting in front of you who might not have had a breakfast. They might have had loud music from the neighbours the night before. They might have separation going on in the house. Nobody knows what exactly is going on in a house and whether they’re sleeping, eating, being minded.”

Marie’s personal situation is that she often has to take her daughter to appointments in the evenings “and she would have to do the homework the following day”. Her children are autistic and attend mainstream school. While her son Conor didn’t mind doing homework in junior and senior infants, her daughter Abi has always hated it. “When [Conor] went into first class I could see the stress level in him, even though he was very good. I always gave mental maths for homework as a teacher, but as a parent you’re going, ‘Holy Jesus, they have to read them and they have to do them’.

“It’s a different kettle of fish when you’re a parent versus a teacher. When you’re trying to actually do it at home — not that it wasn’t work that they couldn’t do or anything like that — but he was just overwhelmed by the end of it.

“Parents, I suppose are often afraid to go against the plan, because they might feel that the teacher might have a thing against them. But I genuinely feel that most people would be agreeable. For my children, my aim for them is to have them happy in school. My children don’t do homework, and absolutely, Conor, it has not affected his performance in any way, shape or form.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said “all policies and decisions regarding homework are school-based. Schools are free to have their own policy on homework” adding that “there are no Department circulars or guidelines regarding homework for primary school pupils”.

Tara Foy says parents are made feel they’re “actually being a bad parent and that you’re letting your child away with murder almost, because they’re not pulling their weight”.

One of the most important things we can ever do is genuinely stand beside our children and have their back and it’s a lot easier said than done

While Tara hasn’t fully opted her children out of homework, she takes it day by day and decides based on how things are going on any given afternoon or evening. “It’s going to take principals and teachers to go ‘you know what, we’re doing this’. Tough to the parents who don’t agree, they don’t agree with lots of things. But that doesn’t mean you have to bend to everybody. You look at the facts, you look at the research ... and you go ahead and try it.”

One of Tara’s children is dyslexic. “When you have a child, and so many children have learning difficulties, be it from mild to extreme, and when you have that kind of pressure on you as a parent to conform ... it’s very damaging to the parent child relationship. You end up fighting so much.”

Tara decided as the school year progressed that she wasn’t going to fight with her child any more. She decided to take the approach “whatever gets done, gets done”.

“I said to the teacher and the principal if there’s a problem, come to me, not my son ... please don’t pull him up, come and talk to me. I got the courage to say, this is not working for my son. It’s making him miserable, it’s making me miserable.”

Tara would also like to see an end to homework for her other children, who are not dyslexic mentioning how she can see “a little dimming of [another child’s] light because of homework. I don’t want to make those mistakes again.”

Psychotherapist, Bethan O’Riordan says “the message nowadays in everything in life is ‘it’s okay to be you’, but homework, in my experience working with clients, and opinion in having three kids in primary school, is that the homework doesn’t allow them to be them because it’s one style of learning and one style of teaching. It’s fine to say you’re not going to do the homework, but if the school don’t support you in that it can be really isolating and really detrimental to a child’s mental health.

“I get to talk with a lot of parents, and when children really explain to me what school is like, only then do we really understand the mental load that they’re under. There are so many rules and there is always somebody watching you to see what you’re doing or not doing. As an adult we never have anybody following us around. I either do my work, or I don’t do my work, and there’s a consequence for whatever I do.

“But there’s no fear of failing because I was really tired and maybe I didn’t prepare the dinner the day before and so we’re going to get chips on the way home. With the kids it’s huge. It weighs so heavy on the mind and they’ve so much to think of.”

O’Riordan says when it comes to homework, parents need to ask “well what do we want for my children? Is it that we only want them to be really academic and keep pushing them that way? Or is it okay that they’re these really rounded children where they have a few hours every night to do what they want to do — to meet friends, to do hobbies, to read a book, to do nothing?

“We so badly as a society want our children to do well,” O’Riordan continues. “But we have to really consider what being and doing well is and how we get them there.

“I’d love to see an end to homework”, she says. “One of the most important things we can ever do is genuinely stand beside our children and have their back and it’s a lot easier said than done.” O’Riordan says parents in approaching the school with the intention of explaining why their children won’t be doing homework can find the prospect more difficult than anticipated. “They come out and they’re like ‘I was kind of just a bit nervous when I got there, so I said ‘oh it’s fine. I’ll just reduce it by five minutes instead’. It’s really hard to stand up for your child, because it brings up all your memories of being in school and fears.”

“Kids really need to see their parents advocating for them, regardless of how uncomfortable it feels. There’s lots of talk out there about teaching primary schoolchildren to say no ... it’s okay to say no ... is it okay to say no? It’s okay to say no as long as you still do your homework. If parents can be really courageous within themselves, and not see themselves as rebels and going against the grain, and just genuinely knowing and supporting their child and advocating for them. It counts for so much within the relationship.”

Jen Hogan, a contributor to The Irish Times, writes about health and family

IN THIS SECTION

Carl mullan: ‘it’s such a shock to the system becoming a parent’, ‘i would like now to share my tips on how you too can become an unbearably smug runner’, ‘it’s great to be able to do kidney dialysis in my sleep . . . i can live my life with this’, whooping cough q&a: what is the disease, and what should i do if my child has it, parent’s benefit scheme: option of taking leave remains outside the grasp of many fathers, big parties set to win seats in each of three european parliament constituencies, poll finds, irish workers among the least productive in europe, study indicates, every time i travel abroad i am gripped by the fear that ireland is making a fool of me, how ireland drinks now: teetotallers, wine-o’clockers and ex-drinkers, refugees remaining in direct provision after being allowed stay in ireland could be charged rent, latest stories, roberto de zerbi to leave brighton after sunday’s clash with manchester united, munich airport: several flights cancelled after climate protesters glue themselves to runway, slovakia’s pm robert fico ‘nearing a positive prognosis’ as suspected shooter appears in court, champions celtic hit back to give joe hart a win in his final league game, gardaí seize €1m worth of suspected cannabis in co meath warehouse.

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Information
• Cookie Settings
• Community Standards

Bobbie’s Bests for Less: 50% off handbags, skin care, more

• TODAY Plaza
• Share this —

• Watch Full Episodes
• Read With Jenna
• Inspirational
• Relationships
• TODAY Table
• Newsletters
• Start TODAY
• Shop TODAY Awards
• Citi Concert Series
• Listen All Day

Follow today

More Brands

• On The Show

The end of homework? Why some schools are banning homework

Fed up with the tension over homework, some schools are opting out altogether.

No-homework policies are popping up all over, including schools in the U.S., where the shift to the Common Core curriculum is prompting educators to rethink how students spend their time.

“Homework really is a black hole,” said Etta Kralovec, an associate professor of teacher education at the University of Arizona South and co-author of “The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning.”

“I think teachers are going to be increasingly interested in having total control over student learning during the class day and not relying on homework as any kind of activity that’s going to support student learning.”

College de Saint-Ambroise, an elementary school in Quebec, is the latest school to ban homework, announcing this week that it would try the new policy for a year. The decision came after officials found that it was “becoming more and more difficult” for children to devote time to all the assignments they were bringing home, Marie-Ève Desrosiers, a spokeswoman with the Jonquière School Board, told the CBC .

Kralovec called the ban on homework a movement, though she estimated just a small handful of schools in the U.S. have such policies.

Gaithersburg Elementary School in Rockville, Maryland, is one of them, eliminating the traditional concept of homework in 2012. The policy is still in place and working fine, Principal Stephanie Brant told TODAY Parents. The school simply asks that students read 30 minutes each night.

“We felt like with the shift to the Common Core curriculum, and our knowledge of how our students need to think differently… we wanted their time to be spent in meaningful ways,” Brant said.

“We’re constantly asking parents for feedback… and everyone’s really happy with it so far. But it’s really a culture shift.”

It was a decision that was best for her community, Brant said, adding that she often gets phone calls from other principals inquiring how it’s working out.

The VanDamme Academy, a private K-8 school in Aliso Viejo, California, has a similar policy , calling homework “largely pointless.”

The Buffalo Academy of Scholars, a private school in Buffalo, New York, touts that it has called “a truce in the homework battle” and promises that families can “enjoy stress-free, homework-free evenings and more quality time together at home.”

Some schools have taken yet another approach. At Ridgewood High School in Norridge, Illinois, teachers do assign homework but it doesn’t count towards a student’s final grade.

Many schools in the U.S. have toyed with the idea of opting out of homework, but end up changing nothing because it is such a contentious issue among parents, Kralovec noted.

“There’s a huge philosophical divide between parents who want their kids to be very scheduled, very driven, and very ambitiously focused at school -- those parents want their kids to do homework,” she said.

“And then there are the parents who want a more child-centered life with their kids, who want their kids to be able to explore different aspects of themselves, who think their kids should have free time.”

So what’s the right amount of time to spend on homework?

National PTA spokeswoman Heidi May pointed to the organization’s “ 10 minute rule ,” which recommends kids spend about 10 minutes on homework per night for every year they’re in school. That would mean 10 minutes for a first-grader and an hour for a child in the sixth grade.

But many parents say their kids must spend much longer on their assignments. Last year, a New York dad tried to do his eight-grader’s homework for a week and it took him at least three hours on most nights.

More than 80 percent of respondents in a TODAY.com poll complained kids have too much homework. For homework critics like Kralovec, who said research shows homework has little value at the elementary and middle school level, the issue is simple.

“Kids are at school 7 or 8 hours a day, that’s a full working day and why should they have to take work home?” she asked.

Follow A. Pawlowski on Google+ and Twitter .

How to talk to your child’s teacher about opting out of homework

Alexander Dummer | Pexels

Conversations with neighborhood acquaintances often leave me with a lot to think about . And a recent conversation about homework left me thinking that the topic might be significant to a lot of families.

One of my neighbors has a daughter the same age as mine, and our girls enjoy playing together when we run into each other. Recently, I saw her at the playground and asked how her daughter’s kindergarten year had gone at our local public school. 

She said she liked the school alright, but the homework was a real drag. Her daughter brought home 5 to 10 pages of homework, and getting it all done ate up their evenings as a family.

As she described it, I realized that she spent more time doing homework with her daughter than I spent in formal lessons to homeschool my daughter for the same level in school.

To be clear, the little girl was in kindergarten . This mountain of homework was being assigned to 5-year-olds.

Call me crazy, but homework in kindergarten seems excessive. This unnecessary busywork takes away time that could be spent on things that are much more important for young children, such as playing, reading aloud, getting outside , and spending time as a family.

But parents have options, and often a lot more say over their children’s education than they may realize. I was inspired by the example of my friend Candace, who encountered a similar homework situation at her son’s kindergarten and took a head-on and genius approach.

Candace learned that experts agree that playtime and outdoor time are very important for children’s development, while there’s no evidence of an academic benefit of homework in elementary school. 

So she sat down and had a friendly conversation with her son’s kindergarten teacher explaining that her son would not be doing any homework that year.

I told his teacher, “We prefer that he spend his afternoons on outdoor time, family time, and free time at this age, so we don’t plan to do homework.  If there’s any specific subject you think he needs more time on or projects the class is working on, please let me know; we can be flexible.” I followed it up with a note in his folder that said the same thing. 

I think this is such a wonderful way to handle the issue. Hopefully if you take a similar approach, you might inspire a few other parents to jump on the no-homework bandwagon with you.

Candace had a few tips for parents who want to take the same approach:

It helps to approach the teacher with friendliness and confidence, rather than feeling defensive or contentious. For our family, the main benefit was time spent outside or on other interests instead of on worksheets.  An added bonus was zero time spent arguing over homework. 

Ultimately, every family has a unique situation. But she’s so glad she took the no-homework route. It was the right decision for her family.

“You know your child best,” she said. “I know my son thrives when he has plenty of play and movement and fresh air in his day.”

As do all children, honestly. So if you find yourself spending all evening on homework for a young child, I hope Candace’s example can inspire you to opt out completely. I don’t think you’ll regret it for a minute.

Articles like these are sponsored free for every Catholic through the support of generous readers just like you.

Help us continue to bring the Gospel to people everywhere through uplifting Catholic news, stories, spirituality, and more.

Is My Kid the Asshole?

How To Push Back Against Homework

Simply opting out may reinforce inequalities, but parents can challenge the status quo in ways that will help everyone..

Welcome to  Is My Kid the Asshole? , a newsletter from science journalist and author Melinda Wenner Moyer, which you can  read more about here . If you like it, please  subscribe  and/or  share  this post with someone else who would too.

In my newsletter a couple of weeks ago, I explored what the science says about elementary school homework. My conclusion: There’s no convincing evidence that homework in these early years helps kids learn. Paradoxically, too, it may worsen inequalities, because teachers tend to more harshly punish less privileged students who fail to do their homework compared with more privileged students who fail to do their homework. That fascinating and important work was conducted by Indiana University sociologist Jessica Calarco , whose research focuses on how institutions (like schools) create and reinforce inequalities.

In response to my newsletter, some readers said that they were now planning to opt their kids opt out of homework. If it doesn’t help your kid learn, why force your kid to do it? I hear you — I’ve had this thought too. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, in light of Calarco’s work, how these individual decisions might affect school dynamics and systemic outcomes. Is telling your kid’s teacher “nope, my child won’t be doing homework” the best way to change the system? If not, what is? To find out, I asked Calarco if she would be willing to share her thoughts and insights.

This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.

First I want to zoom out and ask: What are your overarching thoughts on homework in elementary school?

I actually have a new paper coming out that focuses on the case of math homework. Essentially, we asked: How do teachers account for homework inequalities, and how does the way teachers think about inequalities in homework shape the way they respond to students in the classroom? We find that teachers account for inequalities in homework using the myth of meritocracy. They treat homework as a proxy for kids’ individual competence, efforts and responsibility, even when they know that it is produced in a very unequal context. As a result of that, they end up justifying homework practices that reinforce inequalities in the classroom. Things like assigning homework that exceeds what students are able to complete independently, and punishing students who fail to meet expectations for homework completion, especially if they do so regularly. And then also rewarding students who do meet those expectations regularly — leading to inequalities in things like who's kept in at recess, and who is docked points on assignments, things along those lines.

We also look at why teachers do this. And we find that this “myth of meritocracy” view of homework makes the work of education seem less hopeless, because it gives teachers the sort of savior role to play in teaching students competence and responsibility — which they see homework as a critical piece of, in many cases. At the same time, it allows them to absolve themselves of responsibility when they do see students continuing to struggle, in the sense that they can say, “Well, I gave them homework, and I taught them to be responsible, and they're just not putting in the effort. And so if they're not doing well in school, that's not on me.”

So when students who are less privileged are struggling to do their homework, teachers have this idea that they need to push them harder and punish them in order to get them on track — that that’s the best way to help them?

Exactly. It's seen as a tool for developing students’ responsibility. Even when teachers know that students are up against challenges at home, they often see those students as the ones who need homework the most, that need the help with responsibility the most. The teachers often perceive the parents as less invested or less involved, even when that's not the case at all — when parents would be very happy to be more involved, but simply don't have the time or the resources or, in some cases, the language skills to be able to do that.

So the teachers are basing their responses on their assumptions of what's going on at home. But those assumptions are often flawed.

Exactly. So based on that, I am not a fan of homework. I mean, I think that there is value in what homework is trying to achieve. But I don't necessarily think that the way homework is typically practiced is the way that we ought to be going about achieving those goals. Certainly, many parents value homework as a tool for understanding and learning more about what their children are learning about in school. It's sort of a window into the curriculum, and also a way to get involved in structured ways. But there are other ways that teachers can communicate to families what's being taught in schools. And there are plenty of other ways for parents to be involved aside from homework. I think there's a place for out-of-school practice, and there's a place for communication about curriculum, but it doesn't have to be done in ways that are punitive and potentially damaging for students and families.

After sending out my newsletter, I got comments from readers along the lines of “Oh, this makes me feel empowered to push back against homework. I'll send in a note saying my kid is not going to do homework.” What are your thoughts on opting out like this?

I think the parents who are most in a position to be able to opt out are disproportionately going to be highly privileged parents, because schools don't have an incentive to enforce homework rules against them. If anything, schools have the incentive to let them get away with breaking those rules. And those children almost certainly will not be punished for not having their assignments, particularly if their families are highly involved in sending notes explaining why they're choosing to opt out. But what that leaves in place are the larger patterns of inequalities — it addresses the individual issue, but it doesn't address the larger systemic problem that homework, as it is currently practiced in many schools, tends to create. It leaves in place homework for those students whose parents may be less comfortable opting out because of how they worry that they'll be judged by the school system, or who may not be given the same leeway to opt out if teachers perceive their kids as needing the kind of responsibilities that they perceive homework as providing.

How might concerned parents push back against homework in ways that won’t create these inequalities?

I think they can be broader in the way that they're involving themselves. They can advocate for changes that speak beyond their individual child, and coordinate with other families in their district and in their schools and say, “Okay, let's have a conversation about homework and who is benefiting and who is not, and how we might do this differently.” And that could look like lobbying for a move away from required homework, particularly at the elementary and maybe the middle school level as well — in terms of either making homework fully optional, or making homework something that just simply isn't assigned, beyond maybe things like reading practice at nighttime for kids who are able to do that.

Another possibility for those school districts that do want to have some form of homework in place is to encourage more mindfulness in the kinds of assignments that teachers provide. One of the things that we recommend in our new paper is, if homework is assigned, making sure that it is not too challenging for students to complete fully independently. Essentially, one of the problems with homework is that parents get involved. And so teachers are using it as a proxy for responsibility when in fact, really, it's just a proxy for the amount of involvement that parents are able to provide. And so what that means is that especially when assignments get too challenging — and we find that that's particularly common in math — that's when parents tend to be most involved and that's when it sort of amplifies the problems. And so if teachers are very cautious about calibrating their assignments, to what even the students who will need the most support are able to do independently, then they're less likely to create these inequalities related to the amount of peer support that families can provide at home.

It is advocating for not just “I'm going to take my kid out of homework,” but “Can we please change these assignments? Can we make these assignments ones that my kid can complete independently without me having to be involved as a parent?”

Parents could also ask that teachers or administrators change the way that homework is treated and rewarded in the classroom — lobbying against policies that lead to homework being used, for example, to keep kids in for recess, or to dock kids points, or including it on report cards.

You mentioned optional homework. But if there are students who always turn in the optional homework, and other students who just never doing it — won’t that shape teachers’ perceptions of students in potentially worrying ways, too?

Yes — that gets at the sticky point that this can affect teachers’ perceptions of students, even if it's not actually influencing official policies. We know that teachers often do consider homework when they're assigning grades, even when they're not supposed to.

I would say, if teachers are going the optional homework route, the ideal would be just not to collect it — to provide it as a practice that students can do at home if they want to, but that isn't ever expected to be brought back to school. Teachers can essentially provide the correct answers for parents to be able to access on a website, or by sending home the correct answers so that parents can help kids check it if they want to. I think you're right that if the optional homework is expected to be sent back to school, then that creates the possibility for bias in teachers’ perceptions of which students are doing it and in which students aren't.

And when optional homework is collected, parents feel the pressure, too. My daughter gets optional “challenge” homework in math, and we haven't been doing it every day, but I always feel this guilt, like — is my kid going to be perceived as not as strong of a student because we don't do it?

Exactly. We actually talked about that in our new paper. There were some examples from middle school of teachers assigning optional challenge homework, and then using that to decide which kids got bumped up to higher level math in middle school. So yes, it absolutely happens.

What about when teachers say to parents, “If you find that the homework is too difficult or frustrating, or your child can’t finish it, just send a note in and let me know”? If a teacher requires that a parent be involved in the explanation and refusal of homework, couldn’t this also create a divide between the families who are highly involved and able to send notes in, and those who cannot?

Yes. This kind of policy assumes that if kids aren't getting their homework done, it's because they're being lazy, essentially, as opposed to that they're having trouble. I think it would be better if teachers just had the default assumption that if a student comes in without their homework, it's probably because they were struggling with it or needed more support than they were able to get at home. And not that they were just not being responsible enough. If you have to provide a note, that means that otherwise, it's not justified in not being done.

What else should parents consider if they want to push back against homework policies?

Remember that school administrators are important in these decisions too, and they may be facing pressures on both ends. Some families see homework as necessary for helping their kids achieve higher levels of academic success, or they see it as a way for their kids to distinguish themselves, or they see it is a key tool for communicating what's happening in the curriculum. I think parents should be mindful of the fact that there's a whole host of cross-pressures that administrators and teachers and families are facing, and that they may not always line up the same way. It's easy to assume that all parents are critical of homework, but that's not the case. And similarly, it's easy to assume that all teachers have a similar stance, but they may be facing different constraints as well.

I know you have a daughter. How do you handle homework with her?

Our school has optional homework where they send home homework, but it doesn't have to be sent back. And we try to do it with our daughter sometimes, just to give her a sense of what homework will be like, because homework isn’t optional in older grades. But she understands and knows about the research that I do. So she will give me plenty of sass when I try to get her to do the optional homework, with plenty of critiques of the inequalities embedded in that process. She is highly aware and highly critical of homework, particularly when I try to get her to do it.

I love it. She’s a mini-you.

Yep. For better or for worse.

OTHER NEWS: Last week for Scientific American magazine, I wrote about the devastating problem of suicide among Black youth. Black children between the ages of five and 12 are about twice as likely to die of suicide as white children of the same age. The urgency to deal with the issue has only grown more acute: A new study found that suicide rates among Black children and adolescents have recently been worsening. Between 2003 and 2017, suicides rose in this group, especially among Black girls, whose rate of increase was more than twice as high as that of Black boys. Read more here .

BOOK NEWS: Last week, my book was reviewed in The Washington Post along with three other fantastic books on raising good humans.

Buy my book!

Ready for more?

Why Parents Should Not Make Kids Do Homework

P resident Obama’s pick for Education Secretary, John King, Jr., is headed for confirmation Mar. 9. King’s track record shows he loves standardized testing and quantifying learning. If he loves numbers and research, he should welcome what some teachers and families have known for years: that homework at young ages does more harm than good.

We’re currently enmeshed in a high-pressure approach to learning that starts with homework being assigned in kindergarten and even preschool. Homework dominates after-school time in many households and has been dubbed the 21st century’s “new family dinner.” Overtired children complain and collapse. Exasperated parents cajole and nag. These family fights often ends in tears, threats, and parents secretly finishing their kid’s homework.

Parents put up with these nightly battles because they want what’s best for their kids. But, surprise, the opposite is more likely to be true. A comprehensive review of 180 research studies by Duke University psychologist and neuroscientist Harris Cooper shows homework’s benefits are highly age dependent: high schoolers benefit if the work is under two hours a night, middle schoolers receive a tiny academic boost, and elementary-aged kids? It’s better to wait.

If you examine the research—not one study, but the full sweep of homework research—it’s clear that homework does have an impact, but it’s not always a good one. Homework given too young increases negative attitudes toward school. That’s bad news, especially for a kindergartener facing 12 more years of assignments.

Read More: Why You Shouldn’t Do Your Child’s Homework

Children rebel against homework because they have other things they need to do. Holler and run. Relax and reboot. Do family chores. Go to bed early. Play, following their own ideas. Children have been told what to do all day long at school—which is mostly sitting still and focusing on the academic side. Academic learning is only one side of a child. When school is out, kids need time for other things.

Some schools are already realizing this. New York City’s P.S. 116 elementary school made news last year when its principal Jane Hsu abolished homework and asked families to read instead. Individual schools and teachers from Maryland to Michigan have done the same, either eliminating homework in the elementary years or making it optional. But schools also report that if teachers don’t give it, some parents will demand it.

Believers in homework say it teaches soft skills like responsibility and good study habits. That’s another problem with homework in elementary school. Young kids can rarely cope with complex time management skills or the strong emotions that accompany assignments, so the responsibility falls on parents. Adults assume the highly undesirable role of Homework Patrol Cop, nagging kids about doing it, and children become experts in procrastination and the habit of complaining until forced to work. Homework overtakes the parents’ evening as well as the child’s. These roles aren’t easy to shake.

Read More: How Hard Is Too Hard to Push Kids?

When homework comes at a stage when it can academically benefit students, it can also be a student’s responsibility. That means a high school student should be expected to do her homework without being reminded. It may take a year or two of practice in middle school, but it doesn’t require years of practice. Before age 11, responsibility can be taught in other ways. For a 6-year-old, that means remembering to feed the cat and bring home her lunchbox.

If we want students to improve memory, focus, creative thinking, test performance and even school behavior, the answer is not more homework, the answer is more sleep. The National Sleep Foundation reports that our children are suffering sleep deprivation, partly from homework. If we pride ourselves on a rational, research-based approach to education, we must look at the right facts.

Parents often feel stuck with homework because they don’t realize they have a choice. But they do. Schooling may be mandatory, but homework isn’t. Families can opt out. Parents can approach the teacher either about homework load or the simple fact of doing homework at all, especially in elementary school. Many teachers will be more than happy with the change. Opting out, or changing the homework culture of a school brings education control back down to the local level.

That’s another thing the new Education Secretary has promised: to turn more control for education decisions over to states and local school districts. That could spell good news for students – if local teachers and principals do their own homework and read up on what the research says about making kids do school work after school is done.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• The New Face of Doctor Who
• Putin’s Enemies Are Struggling to Unite
• Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• Boredom Makes Us Human
• John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

OPTING OUT – Step by Step

How to Opt Out/Decline/Refuse STAAR

January 2024 Update: This article has been updated to reflect the practice of the TEA which permits schools to accept parental refusals without placing the assessment in front of the student.

In response to a lot of “how do I do this” questions, we’ve put together this step by step guide on opting out.  This is a general guide of the various steps and forms a parent can follow to Opt Out of the STAAR assessment. If you are looking for an easy, non-confrontational approach, we can’t offer you that. Schools have been instructed to state that they can’t permit it. Some schools go further and falsely claim that state or federal law requires all students to take the STAAR assessments. Others even make implicit or overt threats to parents.

So while all of our forms and letters are polite and civil, there is  no guarantee that your school district will work with you. Fortunately, the past few years have brought more cooperation and the chances for a better outcome are greater than ever.  But if you are met with resistance, you still hold the power.  As Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out said, opting out is, at its heart, an act of civil disobedience. So join the hundreds and thousands of parents locally, statewide and nationally who are standing up and speaking out against the standardization of our children’s education.

Inform the school that you intend to opt out of the assessment. You are not asking them to let you. You are telling them your decision. You can use the Master Opt Out letter , and customize it to your needs.

A lot of parents have asked whether you must tell the school.  If you simply intend to refuse the assessment, you do not.  However, if you want to preserve the argument that Texas law permits you to Opt Out, you must give notice as described in the Opt Out letters.  We also encourage notice so that the school understands that the assessment system is being protested by the parents.

It is extremely unlikely you will receive a response from the school indicating that your child will not be administered the STAAR.  You will almost certainly receive a response from the school telling you they can’t permit it. At that time you can send either the response letter (if they are citing legalities) or a follow up refusal letter (if they simply say they can’t allow it).  In that case, go to STEP THREE.

Some schools have taken to simply acknowledging the letter which leaves the parent in a bit of limbo.  They acknowledge they received the letter but they don’t tell you what they are going to do.  We take this as an opportunity to explore the refusal option.  If you get one of these non-committal acknowledgements, we recommend you send a facilitated refusal request (form forthcoming).

If the facilitated refusal request is agreed to, you simply need to follow up and iron out the details (will you stay home on the main administration day, if not where will she go, do they need you or her to sign anything, etc).  You may get emailed with the list of “consequences” for refusing.  Now is not the time to engage that list.  Now is the time to get a refusal set up.  You can simply acknowledge that you understand what they have communicated to you.  If your request for a facilitated refusal is granted, continue to STEP FIVE.  Otherwise go to STEP THREE.

STEP THREE:

At this point, unless the school relents, you will need to make a decision. The choices of the parent here are multiple:

(A) Keep your child home on STAAR days. If you choose (A), you must be aware of not only the primary test days, but the full testing window. Schools may assess students after the main STAAR administration day as long as it is within the window. Testing windows may be found here .  ( 2023-2024 Calendar , as TEA appears to have made its calendar page private!!) Now a school is not REQUIRED to use the full testing window, but they can.  Unless you learn that they school has completed all assessments and returned the testing materials to the state, then you should assume the entire window might be used.  NOTE: the assessment windows are very long now, and it may be difficult to completely stay out of all assessment days.

(B) Send them for the assessment and instruct them to page to the end  without answering any questions, submit it and confirm their submission.  This is a far easier option than refusing a paper administration ever was.  This is because the assessment can be submitted blank without ever interacting with the proctor.  Although some schools are adding steps of telling students to raise their hands before submitting, that is not a requirement.  Instruct your student to just submit it when they get to the end, being careful not to answer any questions along the way.  If you choose (B) be aware the some schools have told children during testing that their parents just called and said it was OK to take the assessment. Should you go this route, create a password that the child must hear before they take the assessment. If the teacher can’t repeat it, the child doesn’t take the assessment.  Refusing in this manner can be done without any notice to the school at all, although we strongly urge parents to make a written record of their protest.

(C) Keep your kid home the main day of STAAR and then return and refuse the assessment on the makeup day.  Some school districts have permitted children to return to class on makeup days without being assessed. They have required that the child and parent come together to the office before school and write “refused” on the assessment (or sign some other indicator). This is a common sense approach to a refusal to test. It keeps the child in class, minimizes absences and meets their requirements. You can request Return to Class on Makeup Days using this letter.

(D) Advocate for the school to accept your refusal.  This option has become available to parents over the last few years since the TEA has made clear that schools may accept a parental refusal.  Before this, the position of the school was always that “if the student is on campus, we are required to put the assessment in front of them.”  This led to numerous situations where devious test administrators lied to students, cajoled them to disobey their parents or otherwise pressured students who had been told to refuse to participate instead.  The TEA has made clear that this is not required and that the school may accept the parental refusal and simply submit the assessment for scoring as if the student refused in person.  Review this article on the parental refusal.

I want to be super clear – no matter what approach you take, you must prepare for the possibility that the school will try to pull your child for assessment.  No matter what they have said or how much you trust them — BE PREPARED.  Let your child know not to take it.  Tell the kid to call you if they pull him for STAAR.  Walk in with them.   Set up a password system .  Have them trained to tab through if they get stuck in an assessment room!  It’s sad but every year parents send their kids back to school thinking their opt out will be honored, and the school pulls the kid who is unprepared and caves in and takes the assessment.  That’s on us as parents.  BE PREPARED!  Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.  Be one of the many success stories, not the surprise and disappointed victim of school bullying.

This step used to talk about how 5th and 8th grade parents had to fight threats of retention.   Great news!  Promotion is not dependent on STAAR results in ANY GRADE!    There is a recent change in the law which requires schools to provide 30  15 hours of tutoring (in a 4:1 3:1 ratio) for each reading or math STAAR not passed.  (HB 4545 HB 1416).  Parents can opt out of this ( see letter) and schools are  not permitted to remove a child from foundation or enrichment curriculum to tutor them (i.e.  no loss of electives! ).  Review school forms and enrollment documents carefully.  NEVER waive the 4:1 tutoring ratio unless it is part of an agreement that you are satisfied with to minimize or eliminate tutoring.  Never sign it as part of general enrollment documents.

If your child either refuses to complete the assessment on an administration day or if they refuse on a makeup day, you may use the FERPA corrective letter to ask to have the scored assessment removed from your child’s educational records at both the state and local level. The TEA will still score the assessment, and your request will almost certainly be denied, but you can demand your letter be included in his academic file.  THIS SHOULD ONLY BE DONE AFTER YOU RECEIVE SCORE REPORTS.

Report back! We want to hear about any districts that act in a bad manner towards opt out parents. We also want to hear any stories of schools that are understanding and work with you! Use our contact form   to let us know how it goes!

A NOTE ON TRUANCY:

Some districts  threaten truancy charges or send notices about truancy to parents who keep their kids out for all or a large part of the assessment window. But we see this less and less since truancy laws have been modified (see 2017/2016 notes below), and because most parents use some type of agreed or in person refusal to get back to class.  However, if you are missing days to opt out and receive a threat, you should not ignore this.

Rather, inform the school that you have engaged in a home school program on the dates of absence. Let them know that your program included reading, writing, social studies, science and citizenship. Once you have done that, you will have laid the foundation for a defense of truancy charges. It is likely that the school district will not proceed further at that point.  For more information on Dual Enrollment Home Schooling, read this .

Update for 2017:   The following addition from 2016 holds true.  We have had no reports of any truancy related charges from opt out parents in 2016.  >>> Update for 2016: Truancy laws have changed.  The threat is no longer as great as it once was, although it has not entirely disappeared.  In particular, the three day in four week provision, which was used to intimidate parents who held their kids out for a full testing window, has been removed! This is great news.  An unvetted comparison of the old law and the new law is here .

Updated 1/22/24

Comments (244)

March 4, 2015 at 8:33 pm

What do you do when the STAAR test is used to decide if the child is promoted? They use this in 5th and 8th grade.

March 5, 2015 at 12:01 am

The Education Code provides that a child who is retained due to failure to perform satisfactorily on the STAAR assessment can be promoted by a Grade Placement Committee. The GPC is not allowed to only consider the child’s STAAR results in deciding to promote or retain. The committee must consider grades and teacher recommendations also. We have a GPC Meeting Guide for parents posted in our Forms and Resources for more information.

February 20, 2022 at 10:21 am

My opinion it does not help thw kids at all they should go by their grades not by a test thats they do at the end of the year.. whats all that effort the kids do all year for..

April 23, 2023 at 1:25 pm

I am having trouble accessing the “do not score” letter. I have used Microsoft edge and Google chrome and I get an error page that says “ooops! That page can’t be found.” My daughter is in 3 rd grade and starts her first test-reading STAAR- on April 26, so I am trying to do this with little time. Please help.

April 24, 2023 at 11:41 am

We no longer use that letter. The Step by Step has been updated. Thank you.

April 25, 2023 at 10:10 am

You are making us pay for the Do Not Score letter. We need it as the school is marking our son’s test as “scored” even though we opted out with the letter given to the school. Why make us pay for that specific letter? Thanks.

May 23, 2023 at 11:29 am

The Do Not Score letter is no longer in use. The FERPA Corrective letter was released for our subscribers initially. It is now released for general use. Running this website has costs and we use advertising and supporters to cover the costs. Would you prefer I pay all costs out of my pocket in addition to donating the time to maintain this site?

April 25, 2023 at 1:34 am

This doesnt work for Staar alt.

Studemts cant refuse staar alt. How woukd pare ts opt their kid out.

Testing window is a month..

May 23, 2023 at 11:31 am

Schools can accept parental refusal. Some do. Some facilitate it via ARD. But as we have pointed out in other comments here, for a school that is determined to fight you, it can be difficult to opt out. I’d focus on making them understand that they can accept your refusal.

May 6, 2019 at 10:06 am

There are grade placement committees who will place your child in the respective grade based on they’re yearly average

May 7, 2019 at 10:44 am

Grade Placement Committees promote or retain as a matter of law. Placement is not a GPC option.

December 8, 2021 at 10:45 am

This is no longer part of the law

December 8, 2021 at 10:17 pm

Where does it say this? Our district is still saying it’s true. Or just haven’t updated their website.

December 9, 2021 at 10:40 am

Where does what say what? What are they saying is still true? I’d like to answer but need to understand the question.

April 5, 2023 at 11:55 am

Does the option to Opt Out of the STAAR test also apply to High School students?

April 6, 2023 at 2:09 pm

Of course it does. In high school, you will have to form a plan for graduation that does not include STAAR. Read these two articles for more information.

But They Have to Pass STAAR to Graduate What About High School? (updated 2019)

April 20, 2023 at 8:55 pm

So if we opt our kids out of testing.Do that means they won’t graduate? What are the repercussions of not taking it?

April 22, 2023 at 4:10 pm

Well first of for Grades 3-8 that has nothing to do with graduation at all. As for high school you need to review the following articles:

But They Have to Pass STAAR to Graduate

What About High School? (updated 2019)

April 25, 2023 at 1:35 am

Explain how a parent can opt. Their child out of staar alt?

Or is opting out juat for kids who can talk and verbalize refusla?

May 23, 2023 at 11:30 am

Yeah, that’s a real problem. You would need a school that is willing to accept the parental refusal. Some ARDs have facilitated this. But with the expanded testing window, a difficult school can make this a hard goal to accomplish.

April 9, 2024 at 5:33 am

When submitting these refusal forms…will it be best to submit days prior, beginning of school year, or can it be done day of testing? I just now found this information and have looked for years until friend forwarded this to me. His testing is this week he has done testing prior just because the school, counselor and diagnostician all said was required since he was in 3rd grade.

April 9, 2024 at 7:49 am

It really just depends. When Do I Give My Opt Out Notice

March 5, 2015 at 10:55 pm

You can take your kid to school on make up days ten minutes too late for them to administer the test. I did this last year. Worked fine. If they give you a hard time you can say you can just keep your kid out for the rest of the day. Make it up to them if they want your kid to be counted as present for the rest of the school day.

I chose to keep my son out of school on testing days rather than have him write “Refused” on the test because he if wrote anything on the test he would have scored a zero. Since he wasn’t there for testing his STAAR results came back as “NOT SCORED.”

March 6, 2015 at 1:16 pm

Parents who choose to do this should be aware that a school can extend testing past the scheduled end of the school day in order to enable completion. Most don’t because they have staffing issues, but it is a possibility.

As far as a zero on STAAR goes, when was the last time anyone was asked their STAAR scores for any purpose in life? For me personally, a Zero means the same thing as Not Scored.

March 28, 2016 at 9:16 pm

Unfortunately, it does go against the schools overall rating for it to be a score of zero. So by doing all this you really are hurting the teacher who taught your a child all year, because it makes him or her look like they taught your child nothing. Also, this is hurting the school’s budget, which equals dollars that are taken away from your child’s public education. I’m not sure if it does,if it is simply “not scored.” But the zero does plummet the schools rating and funding from the state. This can also lead to the TEA stepping in and taking over a school for under performance. Sadly, the kids suffer because you basically have to teach to the test all year long when the TEA takes over. I’m saying all this to say, be careful with your advice. Parents want to do the right thing for their children, but is this really helping them?

March 28, 2016 at 10:33 pm

Be careful with your own advice. Cite a single documented case of funding cuts, teacher reprisals or school takeover stemming from opt out. You can’t because it has never happened. All those things happen from opt ins. Stop spreading myth and urban legend just to gather more data.

March 29, 2016 at 11:15 pm

I was excited to Read the info in this string until this comment. Unfortunately, all your credibility is lost. Rather than an organization trying to provide information for parents to make informed decisions for the best interest of their children, this shows the true motivation: attack anyone who questions. It’s frustrating because this is a significant issue for my family (and I’m sure many others), and I had been so encouraged that I had found a legitimate source of information.

March 29, 2016 at 11:32 pm

Oh I see, one comment you deem intemperate means none of the information provided is good. No refutation of it, you just didn’t like my attitude? That’s your choice. But sadly in the last three years at exactly this time of year, people either anonymously or with their “title” come to this site and make baseless claims and talk about horrible potential consequences, that have never happened. In the Northeast, there are opt out number 25 times greater than Texas. They have never lost federal funds due to opt out. If someone comes on here making claims, as the site I owner, I am fully entitled to demand proof of their claims. That’s so you can make an informed decision. Maybe you found his post interesting and concerning. I found it a boring repeat of claims that have been made for the last three years with zero evidence to support them. If you want a legitimate source of information, I think you would like to see some proof that those claims actually have merit. I’m sorry, but after three years of this, I don’t have a lot of patience with scare tactics from anonymous commenters.

April 9, 2016 at 8:26 am

This comment is not talking about opting out. It is talking about writing on the test and receiving a score of zero. I can attest that schools and teachers are harmed when scores are low. I’ve lived through two schools being reconstituted, had a dozen friends lose their jobs because the scool had to cut a certain percentage of faculty. Let me be clear, I SUPPORT OPT OUT. I just think you shouldn’t hurt the teachers by writing “refused” and getting a zero.

April 9, 2016 at 3:27 pm

Then it is up to the schools not to threaten and intimidate parents who opt out by keeping their kids home. Again, the things that you cite did not happen as a result of opt outs.

May 3, 2016 at 2:15 am

This site has sited not one single “law” protecting a child or parent’s right to opt out without the fear of the school district exercising IT’S rights as protected by out State Laws. I hate the STARR test with a passion and feel it is an awful waste of time our children could be using to REALLY learn subjects and not to simply learn how to prepare for testing on them. However, an equal it not bigger waste of time is the junk this site promotes and feeds your parents who would rather listen to someones twisting and spinning of the Texas Education Code not to mention many laws governing or supporting said codes. Wake up people…this site is doing nothing but feeding off your fears…

May 4, 2016 at 12:07 am

Actually, we cite 26.010 of the Texas Education Code. We also specifically note the possibile consequences of opting out. We also relay actual data to parents regarding such things as retention rates. Unlike the schools, which claim that 5th and 8th graders MUST pass STAAR to be promoted, we tell the actual facts. Unlike schools that tell 5th and 8th graders that they must go to summer school if they fail STAAR we inform parents of how the actual AI is determined.

As an “expert” can you cite a single court decision which contradicts our interpretation of any Texas statute. Of course you can’t because you would have done so in your little tirade. And of course if there were any such case law, we would have it cited already. By the way, you should read the Texas Supreme Court decision noting thay school districts have no “rights” – which is a very basic legal concept that you clearly don’t understand. Perhaps you should post stories of parents who followed the steps on this site and suffered terrible consequences. Oh wait, you can’t do that or you would have. Maybe you should tell them about how we posted a process to let parents view their child’s STAAR assessment that doesn’t work. Oh wait, it does work. Damn. You almost had us there. Maybe you should discuss the 300+ times the Education Code defines the STAAR as a test and not an assessment. Ah damn, I had that backwards. Sorry. Honestly, other than whiny vitriol, do you have anything to contribute. Maybe you should identify yourself so we can assess your credibility.

April 5, 2019 at 5:09 pm

Ask any teacher that has been ostracized during a performance review because of student scores. Student scores are considered when a teacher is seeking a pay raise or seeking a promotion. As a parent, I encouraged my children to take the test because I lose absolutely nothing from them taking it. As a teacher, I loose salary and promotion points when students refuse/miss taking the test. Now you were saying about any case where “funding was withheld?” That’s how.

April 5, 2019 at 6:27 pm

So because schools act badly due to high stakes, we should all jump on board high stakes? With respect to your pay, that has nothing to do with federal funding for 95% participation. Your comment is irrelevant and does not rebut my point in the least. Teacher reprisal? Again, I ask for specific anecdotes and not a single one was provided. But let’s examine your tale of employment woe. As a consenting adult, you chose to enter into a field that had those parameters to your compensation. Private schools don’t use STAAR so you could seek employment there. Or maybe you should go to work for a district that values you as more than a number. But a dyslexic child doesn’t have the choice to not be dyslexic while receiving his constitutionally guaranteed free public education. An English Language Learner doesn’t automatically get academic fluency so he can help you get a raise. Let’s focus on the kids who are the victims and not you for a moment, and understand that as a parent, if I deem an assessment injurious to my kids, or discriminatory against other kids, my duty is to act on that, not to make sure you get a raise.

April 23, 2023 at 6:50 pm

Yes, tell em!!! Thank you for clearing that up. 🤗 This link has giving me all the answers to all the questions I’ve had and could not find ANYWHERE else. Thank you so so much!!! Btw, I am absolutely getting a kick out of and loving your replies to these people that obviously had nothing better to do than jump on a site they’re not for to talk crap.

March 29, 2016 at 6:12 pm

Good! i am burned out with this bs test and some of these schools. I have begged for help and only when your child fails a benchmark do they decide more help is needed. Standardized test does not promote smarter children. Texas has a ridiculous expectation and we are very low rates in the us. They are doing plenty wrong starting w this test!!! Many kids can’t pass it and they don’t deserve punishment I am disgusted they hold students with disabilities to the same standards and refuse to support earlier on when a difference could be made. I personally have signed under ard to accept scores as is. The principal is now doing that for all special educational students. They only have to write their names and be considered in compliance as “participated”. Much better approach for special Ed. While that doesn’t help my younger child who is expected to take it this year in third I plan on using tools on here to opt him out.

May 6, 2017 at 12:04 pm

So how do we get out of summer school if they fail the test twice? Hate STAAR! Mine are SpEd.

April 7, 2016 at 6:37 pm

I am a Texas teacher. If a student does not take the STAAR test that in no way hurts me professionally nor does it affect the school budget or funding. I’ve been an educator for 26 years and parents need to opt out, opt out, opt out! Teaching is nothing but STAAR centered. Texas children are not receiving a quality education when all they’re taught is how to pass this standardized test.

April 7, 2016 at 10:50 pm

Thank you for speaking up!

May 6, 2016 at 9:23 am

I’m so glad you said that because it’s the truth!!

November 2, 2016 at 2:08 pm

Thank you for supporting those of us who feel we have to take a stand for our children and their education.

February 18, 2018 at 3:40 pm

My mom taught for 25 years and hated preparing kids for the STAAR. She could never teach what she wanted to and the kids panicked. my 9 year old does great with class work, but freaks out and has panic attacks when it comes to these tests. I hate this time of the year because I’ll see as far as notes go are get a lot of sleep, eat a healthy meal and be at school on time.

April 27, 2018 at 1:16 pm

Thank you for your honesty!

April 27, 2021 at 10:26 pm

My neighbor is a teacher & he encourage me to opt out of the STAAR test. That must mean something? I opt out but they expect my kid to take it before entering 9th grade. I don’t want to get in trouble. Should I talk to the counselor? Thanks for your info. Keep it going.

June 9, 2021 at 5:10 pm

You don’t want to get in trouble? The good news is that you aren’t a student anymore. The principal has no power to punish you. You are the parent. You make the educational decisions for your kids. There are not STAAR police. The schools won’t agree with you, but they can’t punish you.

June 21, 2021 at 10:17 am

I love and appreciate your reply! Unfortunately, I don’t think it applies today. (really wish it still did!) I am searching and searching for anything to justify me opting my 9th grade, very dyslexic son out of the English Staar testing for which they are doing the make up test tomorrow. He is having major anxiety about having to take this test. He was a remote learner all of his 9th grade year and made all A’s and one B. Bet ya can guess what class he got the B… yup, English! He does NOT test well and English is the worst for him! Oh how I hope you are still on here and have some insight for me.

April 20, 2018 at 9:00 pm

That’s the problem… Teachers teach for this stupid test and ratings. It is the stupidest idea ever. Up north we never had such a test. Not all kids are good at test and shouldn’t have such pressure put on them or else. It’s a big money making scheme people.

June 27, 2018 at 6:54 pm

The kids aren’t in service to the schools, teachers or to the district. It’s a perverted way of thinking to say that what is good for kids hurts the school so let’s hurt our kids.

May 10, 2023 at 1:56 pm

It doesn’t make the teacher look bad. It makes administrative in the counselors and assistant principals look bad because they don’t do any accommodations or are not willing to hear the parents that have students who are 504, my daughter suffers from stress and very bad anxiety every time testing comes around. And nobody wants to hear that. She cannot test in big groups and they still continue putting her in big groups.

April 24, 2018 at 8:35 pm

So did he get promoted to the next grade

May 6, 2018 at 6:04 pm

We have had zero reports of opt out kids being retained. Not saying it hasn’t happened or can’t happen, but the people who post here are very vocal and if one of them had been retained, we would know it.

April 7, 2019 at 8:37 pm

They threatened us when our daughter was in the fifth grade. We kept her home during test and make up days then asked for a grade placement committee. The meeting consisted mostly of threats and false law citations by them but we calmly replied and handed over printouts we had culled from this site and a few others to each committee member. They then told us they needed to stop the meeting and that it would be continued the next day with other administrators in attendance. They told us that we needed to bring a plan we planned to follow over the summer to make sure our daughter stayed on grade level (she was an A/B student) since she had missed so much school. We showed up the next day with 5 things listed on a piece of paper that we normally do every week/month (museums, vacations, library) and brought along her report card. The committee promoted her but made sure to tell us know they did not like having to do so and we had somehow damaged our child. She is now in the 7th grade. 5th grade was our first rodeo so to speak and I’ve learned since that if you walk in with a 5” binder full of Federal and Texas Code along with a few OCR and TEA manuals, the meetings tend to move more quickly and to the point.

May 13, 2019 at 5:24 pm

What did you have in your binder. I know I will need this soon!

May 11, 2022 at 6:03 am

This is incorrect. We have students who come in two hours late and we still administer the assessment.

May 12, 2022 at 10:41 am

It’s not incorrect. Neither is your example. She didn’t say 10 minutes late, she said ten minute TOO late to administer. Meaning there isn’t enough time left in the day. This is a strategy many parents use successfully. The caveat is that schools can extend the day to complete the assessment, but most won’t due to staffing issues. But they could. It’s not a silver bullet but it usually works.

March 11, 2015 at 9:41 pm

Just as a side note, teachers in a lower performing elementary school in Wichita Falls, Texas were warned at the beginning of the school year that teachers that did not produce acceptable scores would be fired. Teachers are forced to “write off” students who won’t make the cut, and concentrate on those on the borderline. Of course, those who exceed expectations sit idly by, stalled in neutral when they could have achieved so much more. Teachers are in survival mode.

November 19, 2015 at 10:03 pm

This is absolutely true everywhere not just low performing. We are desperately trying to keep afloat.

March 28, 2016 at 8:07 pm

Well isn’t that lovely! I live in WF and unfortunately my daughter goes to the worst elementary school in the district. My poor 10 yr old is crying, can’t sleep and has horrible stomach cramps tonight, the night before this f*****g test!

March 28, 2016 at 10:34 pm

Keep her home!

April 9, 2017 at 9:21 pm

At my elementary where I work and my 2nd grader attend . I in front office have to call any kids who are absent and get their parents to bring them to school unless they have fever… and our admins are willing to gonpick them up.. my daughter also gets stomach cramps and headaches during start.. so sad I feel so bad for these kids

August 22, 2019 at 3:58 pm

Schools cannot force students to attend if they have no fever…This is legitimately not a thing.

August 23, 2019 at 9:36 am

What are you saying isn’t a thing? Schools calling parents on STAAR days and going to pick up kids?

March 29, 2016 at 6:20 pm

Exactly pity the teachers who cares what stress and anxiety it is causing on children! This is why I have zero respect. They only care Abt themselves not Abt the poor kids who are having break downs over the pressure of this stupid test! Freaking strike teachers!!! Boycott the test! There’s an idea! If everyone hates it so much we all need to get off our butts and go with teachers to Austin and protest. We pay the taxes! Think they will listen when no teachers are in the classroom? I bet they will. But so far no one is willing to put up a fight to change it or the few who are don’t get back up. But give the kids help when their parents are begging for it. Just try writing off my children. Already died one district I’ll do it again!

April 2, 2016 at 9:27 am

The thing is SO many people talk but will not actually do anything about it. If every parent would stand up to the state then they would have to do something. I know there is not one person who loves this testing. I agree there needs to be sort of accountability but not a pass or fail.

January 12, 2022 at 9:45 pm

But will you quit your job? But will you go protest and become unpaid and put your own kids and family at jeopardy to stand up for this? If not then don’t bash teachers. The people who make the real difference are PARENTS. Teachers do not have a lot of say in the matter. Parents can make real changes. Inform parents of their rights and how to be protected and I guarantee more people will stand up. BUT if you are not willing to lose your job about this then DO NOT expect teachers to lose their jobs over this. We are humans just like you who have to make a living for our family. Plus we have stood up for this many of times and nothing got done. So I will refer to PARENTS ARE THE ONES WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. So get up and do something about it.

May 1, 2016 at 2:50 pm

My son is one of those that exceeds expectations. He is quickly bored and uninvolved when the same thing is done over and over and over just to get everyone to test standards. His grades suffer for it as well as what he could be learning and his enjoyment in learning it. That all started this year. I found out at Christmas (not from his teacher) that his reading level was atrocious. He can take a book I read and dissect it; noun, verb, adverb, prepositional phrase but he could not read the majority of it. That is an absolute disgrace and miscarriage of what our education system is supposed to do. He has been absolutely bent up, this whole semester, over these redundant assessments and benchmarks. I finally sat him down and explained that he is an OPT OUT kid and what that meant. He has been a completely different kid and student. To the point of his teacher’s making good comments about his attentiveness and vigor in the classroom, now.

March 23, 2015 at 8:15 am

The state of Texas requires five STAAR exams (Algebra 1, English 1 & 2, Biology and US History) in order for a student to graduate. By opting out of these tests in high school aren’t you preventing your student from receiving their high school diploma?

March 23, 2015 at 10:58 pm

SB 149 is currently revisiting this requirement. However, review our article entitled “What About High School” for more information on options for parents of high school students.

March 28, 2016 at 10:36 pm

So do they need to pass the staar test to graduate? My son is a senior and hasn’t been able to pass one of the staar test. They said he has one more chance to pass it or else he won’t graduate.

March 28, 2016 at 10:44 pm

If your son has passed three of the EOCs he can graduate by Individual Graduation Committee. You need to tell the school you want his Individual Graduation Committee to meet.

March 30, 2016 at 9:44 pm

I think this may be helpful for those parents of high school students!

https://www.region10.org/r10website/assets/File/GISD%20IGC%20Manual.docx

March 31, 2016 at 10:31 am

Thanks for the resource! I am posting it, although I have not vetted it. Sometimes schools add things that aren’t in the rules.

February 1, 2022 at 5:41 pm

to piggy back off this, I was a straight A student that was horrible at testing. I failed the Math test several times before giving up. I was not able to Graduate because of this. I have met all the requirements to graduate EXCEPT passing the Math test. Till this day they will not release my diploma until the test is passed. I just would like to know is this something that could possible help get my diploma by Opting myself out?

February 1, 2022 at 7:03 pm

No, but there are numerous ways that people from the old assessment regimes can get their diplomas. If you have done any of the following things you can graduate by district decision:

(c) The alternative requirements for graduation shall permit an individual to qualify to graduate and receive a high school diploma if the individual: (1) has met the performance standard on an alternate assessment as specified in §101.4003 of this title (relating to Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Exit-Level Alternate Assessments); (2) has performed satisfactorily on the applicable subject-area test of a state-approved high school equivalency examination in accordance with §89.43(a)(4) of this title (relating to Eligibility for a Texas Certificate of High School Equivalency); (3) provides evidence of attainment of a Texas Education Agency-approved industry-recognized postsecondary license or certification; (4) provides evidence of current active duty service in the armed forces or a DD Form 214 indicating honorable or general discharge from the armed forces; or (5) has successfully completed college-level coursework and earned college credit.

A lot of people have taken a one hour PE or Intro to College course at the local community college to meet section 5.

January 29, 2016 at 2:23 pm

I was told that since my son has failed one of the English tests (last years), that he had to at least ATTEMPT the test each and EVERY time it was given or he couldn’t qualify for the meeting to decide whether to grant him a diploma or not even thought he is an A/B student and has a good GPA. Our school has no give and will NOT agree to opting out without giving parents all kinds of grief! It’s all about the money they can get.

January 29, 2016 at 2:37 pm

That is a misinterpretation of the law. SB 149 requires that they attempt it at least once. If they intend to substitute TSI scores, they must have attempted it twice. The school is required to continue to offer it. That is all. Also, there is no requirement that the school wait until the last possible administration to convene an IGC.

April 20, 2023 at 2:05 pm

I am an advocate for students and you can opt out, but they will not graduate with a “diploma”. They will graduate with a certificate unless your child is in special education. If that is the case then there are various other options.

April 20, 2023 at 2:41 pm

You really should better inform yourself. IGC students graduate with a diploma. Substitute assessment students graduate with a diploma. CVEP students graduate with a diploma just from a different institution.

April 17, 2015 at 1:07 pm

Do we need to send all the letters and deal with the school, or can we simply let them stay home those days?? Then they just never take it. Just curious. (My son is in 7th)

April 19, 2015 at 6:16 pm

You can certainly just stay home. The letters are an effort to do two things: (1) comply with the existing statute and (2) make clear the reasons for our civil disobedience. Since the schools deny the statute lets you opt out anyway, you can certainly save yourself the hassle of dealing with them. You will lose the opportunity to fight over what the statute actually means if you do that. Either way, make sure you let someone know (like your state reps) why you did it! It will take momentum to make changes here in Texas.

April 21, 2015 at 1:25 am

I suspect there are lots of parents who have been demonstrating their civil disobedience for years by simply keeping their kids home from school on those days. It would be interesting to see the number of absences (excused and unexcused) for those days. The reality is that opting out is a war that will take YEARS of fighting before a satisfactory conclusion is reached. By the time the statue changes, their kids will be long out of school. My oldest son graduated HS 5 years ago(from public school) and the “state testing wars” that started before he even entered elementary school is still going on. I am giving serious consideration to homeschooling my youngest through the remainder of his middle school years (just as i did with my oldest for middle school) and possibly through high school. I hate to say it, but it would take something DRASTIC (such as a huge failure rate across most grade levels, say 70% or more statewide) before statute changes due to a huge outcry and enormous pressure on politicians. That is when parents would finally be allowed to opt out without coercion to their families. Most people forget that politicians, leaders, decision makers at the upper echelons of our public educational system most often have kids that don’t even attend public school (if they have kids at all). They don’t want their kids caught in the public school political and funding MESS. They certainly don’t want to deal with TRUANCY threats at the first sign of a cough.(yes they attempt to level charges even against children with legitimate illnesses). These are your decision makers folks. As for a co homeschooling & public schooling situation, working to satisfy truancy charges–highly doubtful. The reality is that judges can interpret the education code as they see fit and there is nothing in that education code that makes accommodation for a dual enrollment situation. Homeschoolers have been fighting for YEARS for the right to be allowed to co-enroll for the purposes of playing sports and taking a select number of classes in public school. Its a battle that has been waged for years. Yet to this day homeschoolers are not allowed to attend a handful of classes in public school or play sports along with other PS students during school hours. Sadly, i’ve even heard of parents so battle worn that they’ve resigned themselves to simply take the Class C misdemeanor charges along with the $275.00 fine for truancy and then worry about expunging the charges once their child graduates high school. Oh and yes they are bringing charges against PRE- SCHOOLERS now, along with kindergartners, first graders, second graders etc. Frisco ISD and ALLEN ISD were featured in a Dallas Morning News article entitled “Petite Perps” last year. No one has studied the psychological impact of bringing a child as young as a preschooler and kindergartner before a judge as if they are a common criminal. I suspect the potential damage is a lifetime of anxiety issues and panic attacks not to mention depression and an overall hatred of school/learning. My advice- 1. HOMESCHOOL your child if at all possible (not just during the staar) 2. Enroll them in private school FROM HOME if you cannot afford regular private school attendance. 3. If you can afford it, send them to private school if possible. 4. Some private schools allow for dual enrollment with homeschool (this cuts down your cost) 5. Graduate your child in 3 years instead of 4 years of high school. My son,nephew and niece were virtually all done with their HS graduation requirements by 11th grade (except for one class) yet they were all FORCED to take a full load of classes because the district required at least 6 classes in senior year for the purposes of funding(warm bodies in those chairs). RIDICULOUS. 6. GED (General Equivalency Diploma) its still an option and from what ive heard more challenging than the regular high school academics/diploma.

April 21, 2015 at 10:38 am

With respect to co-enrollment, we really won’t know until a case is (a) filed and (b) litigated with competent counsel. There are school districts that allow co-enrollment, but they don’t advertise. The entire premise of “there is nothing in the Code that allows it” is backwards. The Texas Constitution gives all students the right to a free public education. There is no prohibition on that which says you must forego private education if you enroll in public schools. That is the proper analysis, not the reverse.

That said, if you enroll in public school, you will have to comply with the 90% rule and if your absences cause you to miss tests or other required classwork, you may be penalized. As far as truancy, I would love to hear any actual report of a child under age 12 being charged (not the parent) because that is completely contrary to statute.

August 4, 2022 at 11:38 pm

My daughters school just slammed the parents tonight at meet the teacher night and threatened to hit the kids and parents with truancy if opted out .

August 5, 2022 at 4:41 pm

If opted out of what? What district?

April 22, 2015 at 11:36 am

I wished I had known about these steps. I feel like I have failed my kids. I feel as if I don’t let them test, that all the Hard work and extra work that they have been given is all a waste of time and effort on their behalf. At our School in Somerset Tx, the school has Stopped teaching Science and History, due to only working on Reading, writing, and math skills. This truly concerns me. On one hand I want to see how well my kids have done but on the other hand I don’t care if they passed the dang test or not. Just feeling so lost.

August 13, 2015 at 3:54 pm

I have a 8th grader who went to private school until last year her private school only went to 6th grade so the whole thing was a huge change from about 12 in class to 30 she was in Pre AP class’s to start we pulled her out of the math it was just to fast and not learning the rest of the class’s where pre ap and she/we worked hard for these class’s with tutoring in school and outside her daily work is great but when comes the CA’s they do here in Arlington TX. and exams she does not do well her math was after the first semester 80’s-90’s but test were low and her other class’s which were the pre AP class’s were 75-89 but when it came to the starr test she did not pass and now they want to make her take a starr class which to be able to keep the gym and band they have put her in zero hour which starts at 7:30-8:30 and then the rest of the till 4 they said that she has to take this starr class my question is does she and can we opt out of the starr test this year and she still be prompted to the 9th grade next year.

We are even looking at private school again it is just I want her to know how it is going to be come college and small private schools.

Can they make her take this Starr Class

Thanks for your time

Data Frausto

August 13, 2015 at 3:56 pm

We are wanting to Opt Out of this Testing for this next year but want to make sure she get to go on the 9th grade

October 17, 2015 at 12:57 pm

When do you send the 1st letter?

October 19, 2015 at 1:45 pm

do you have any advice for parents with kids that are on IEP’s or have developmental challenges? my son is in the 5th grade and will receive accommodations when taking the STAAR. however, he failed his 4th grade star and I’m concerned that his dyslexia will prevent him from passing this year and will be remanded. should we just opt out? he’s been on an IEP since kindergarten and has been promoted every year. while he isn’t at grade level on some subjects, he passes all his subjects.

January 28, 2016 at 4:44 pm

My recommendation is, if you decide to permit your child to be assessed, to make a written request that all of his classroom and testing accommodations be given to him at the time STAAR is administered. They will respond that they are only allowed to give certain accommodations. You should then respond in writing, informing them that under federal law your child is entitled to whatever accomodations they are denying. It won’t change their approach, but it will protect your rights if you have to take further action.

March 24, 2016 at 3:14 am

I am in the EXACT same situation. Have you decided what to do? It has actually brought my son to tears because he’s so stressed and afraid of the staar test.

March 29, 2016 at 6:29 pm

Yes if they take the test tell the ard committee u want to accept scores as is and they will cite a law. Tell them your student has participated. That is what they claim is the law/requirement to participate. Then if they fight u tell them that if their supports were working your son would have passed. If they are still insistent after that demand crazy supports for your child. I did that and now they simple have kids in special Ed sign their name to the test and accept as participation. Being special Ed it is up to the ard committee on pass/fail not up to test scores and you are part of that committee. Refuse to check accept if they don’t do what u want

May 5, 2019 at 2:24 pm

My son is in special ed I don’t want him to take that test…can you plz explain to me alil bit more on how I can try to do what you did?…I read what you posted understood some of it but still alil confuse any help you can give me I thank you for

November 30, 2015 at 9:48 pm

Our children attend Glen Rose ISD. The superintendent has been extremely helpful to the best of his ability according to the TEA that binds our district. Our students are allowed to attend on testing and retesting days after an specific amount of time. For example, last school year the high school students were required to have 5 hours to take the STAAR. With our high school releasing at 3:35pm, students are allowed to show up to school after 10:36 am without any repercussions. The score is marked as “A” for absent. Lower grade levels have time requirements as well, allowing students to attend the remainder of the day after a certain time. This is just a reminder that it is possible for students to still attend on assessment days.

January 8, 2016 at 2:29 pm

Are the letters posted on this website good to use for 2016?

January 26, 2016 at 12:15 pm

January 13, 2016 at 6:20 pm

I’ve read this answer before so I apologize for being redundant…not having any luck finding the answer now that I need it! My question is this…If my 6th grader opts out in 6th grade, can he be forced to take remedial classes in 7th? (His teacher, in as many words, threatened that he won’t get to play football because he will have to take remedial math.) He has average/above average grades in his 6th grade math classes. I wish to opt out on principle as well as in support of my son who has huge anxiety thinking about taking this test. (We’ve opted out in the past but now football is “on the line.”)Thanks.

January 30, 2016 at 4:06 pm

There is no legal requirement that the student be placed in remedial classes. If the school is threatening this, you will have to fight them on it.

January 29, 2016 at 9:44 pm

I wanted to know what about kids that take staar alt. There is a window of testing that I would have to keep her out of. The school has already denied my letter. Do I have to keep her out the whole window?

January 30, 2016 at 4:04 pm

Tragically, the TEA greatly expanded the STAAR-Alt window to a point where a parent really has only one good alternative if their school is not cooperative. That alternative is to withdraw the student from school for the entire assessment window and re-enroll after the window closes. If you decide to go forward with assessment, you should request in writing that all classroom accommodations be provided on STAAR, because TEA rules do not currently allow this. You should put them on notice that you consider that to be a violation of your child’s rights under federal law and that if any adverse action is taken as a result of unaccommodated assessment, you will seek to enforce those rights.

March 23, 2016 at 10:57 am

My daughter is in 8th grade and has never under stood math! Last year I unenrolled her for 2 weeks and the day she went back they sent me to court’ my ? Is she is beyond stressed to where she has chest pains and is sent home from school’ she’s depressed because she knows she can’t do it’ ‘ this year I will more than likely do the same with her’ she don’t need that stress in her life she’s to young and had a heart mummor! I guess my ? Is who is the decision up to if she don’t take the test? Is it the principal because she and the assistant principal are beyond against her going in and making all the other kids not want to take the test! Which is y I kept her home

February 7, 2016 at 9:14 pm

The alt test is very low stress compared to the others. They are very casual and I see no harm in them. They are just like taking probes on IEP goals. At the students pace with frequent breaks.

February 8, 2016 at 12:41 pm

Many SpEd parents disagree. And whether the administration is casual or not, they students are still assessed and the results used to rate schools and teachers. The STAAR-Alt remains inappropriate for many of the students who take it, and the passage rate is abhorrent. But obviously, compliance is a decision for each family to make on its own.

March 16, 2022 at 2:02 am

My son has dyslexia and was tested in school and given accommodations set up with an IEP and yearly ARD meetings. This year we moved into a new school district, I lost my husband just weeks before the school year and had plans to homeschool my son but couldn’t after the passing of my husband. He was enrolled into 5th grade at the new school almost 2 weeks into 2021/2022 school year and has missed some days due to us trying to cope with the loss of my husband, his dad. His grades in reading and math have been below 70s for most of the year and I’m just realizing how much I’ve neglected his education. I recently had and ARD meeting questioning his spelling test grades (grades of 20s 15s). I requested that they modify and accommodate with a shorter list prior and never heard anything back. When it was brought up to the teacher she said she would make changes but she still wants him to attempt all words and will only be grading the first ten.(which I think is BS) I also made them aware of papers I receive in his folder half completed sometimes nothing on them done and sometimes teachers requesting signatures from me with no explanation. I then proceeded to tell them how my son feels when coming back from seeing the specialist and how lost he feels when joining the class and not receiving any help to get on track with lessons. During that meeting I requested if I could shadow my son for a day to see how his day is structured and how he is transitioned from class to specialist and back to class. I was quickly told to email the principal bc he would be able to reply quickly. Emailed the next day but the following day he tells me in the parent drop off that he received my email and hasn’t forgotten and will reply soon. Day goes by and I see him and he immediately leaves into the gym. See him on an early release day and quickly heads into a hall and out of sight. March 7 was when I emailed this principal and I have yet to get a reply. Reading on my rights to opt my son out of Staar testing, How could his absences and grades affect him from moving into 6th grade? Can I use his progress from his previous school as proof that he is able to make the grade and show progress and should be promoted? Please let me know and if you have any other recommendations please feel free to send them ALL. I know children have testing coming up on may 10-12 I believe and I would love to save him the worry of having to take that BS test.

April 12, 2022 at 1:46 am

This doesn’t answer all of your questions, but be aware that some special ed depts use avoiddance as method to effectively deny things that parents request. At least in TX, u have a right to be in your child’s classroom, without any advance warning or explanation. Since they can’t officially say “no” they are avoiding you. Don’t let that keep you out of the classroom. Keep stating your requests / concerns, for 504/ SPED, in writing, and pointing out that they have not answered you. I have observed one Houston school that had this non-answering strategy for Special Ed raised to an art level. It was maddening.

February 6, 2016 at 1:26 pm

I am not a fan of testing. However, when you choose to send your children to public school, unfortunately state testing is a part of it. What are you teaching your children? If you don’t like something, you can simply refuse to do it? So, if they don’t like a book that they are required to read, they simply can opt out? If they don’t like a writing assignment, they can opt out? They don’t want to take a test, it’s ok, you can simply stay at home? Or, better yet, like one parent I know, we can just go to Disney World. This is what is wrong with so much of our workforce today. Too many employees have the attitude that they only have to do what they like to do and work should be as they please. Testing has gotten out of control. However, if you don’t like it, homeschool or go to private school! Don’t put the teachers and schools in a position, the majority are simply trying to educate your children and do the best they can to assure that your children are educated.

February 8, 2016 at 12:39 pm

I’m not teaching them to be an unquestioning sheep, that’s for sure. There are plenty of you out there already. Why are you even on this page if you are sold out to the testing agenda? Let’s just deal with your “objections” one by one.

I am not a fan of testing. However, when you choose to send your children to public school, unfortunately state testing is a part of it.

I missed the part of civics that said we need to unquestioningly follow and do exactly what the government tells us to do. I’ll go back and re-read my constitution.

What are you teaching your children? If you don’t like something, you can simply refuse to do it? So, if they don’t like a book that they are required to read, they simply can opt out? If they don’t like a writing assignment, they can opt out? They don’t want to take a test, it’s ok, you can simply stay at home?

You are teaching your child that there are some things that are more important than compliance. A book, a writing assignment, a classroom test — those things are not, individually, turning the entire K-12 educational system into automatonic, bubble-filling, test preparation courses. Reading books is replaced with “close reading”. Writing assignments are replaced with 26 line “essays” that must stay within the box. In fact, your citation to those kind of assignments that are rapidly disappearing from our classrooms shows how uninformed you are about how the test-prep, drill and kill, assessment based curriculum has warped our public schools. So, yes, there are some things important enough to draw a line in a sand. It’s not about any one assessment, or any one assignment. It’s about the impact that corporate testing has on the public schools.

Or, better yet, like one parent I know, we can just go to Disney World. This is what is wrong with so much of our workforce today. Too many employees have the attitude that they only have to do what they like to do and work should be as they please.

My kid isn’t your employee, and if we think school is about training people to be little employees, we have the wrong idea. The economy doesn’t turn on workers bees. We need worker bees, but we also need leaders, innovators, artists, paradigm shifters and people who know how to think outside the box, or outside the bubble. We are losing that end of education, and that’s way more important than whether the state collects data on my child this spring.

Testing has gotten out of control. However, if you don’t like it, homeschool or go to private school! Don’t put the teachers and schools in a position, the majority are simply trying to educate your children and do the best they can to assure that your children are educated.

You can choose to quit and give up on public education if you like. I choose to fight and to return to teachers and local schools the power to truly educate, not test train our kids.

March 28, 2016 at 9:25 pm

Very well stated

February 8, 2016 at 1:01 pm

E. Heinz –

My child is an English Language Learner, adopted internationally with only two years of English. He is expected to take the same assessment native-speakers take. The “accommodations” built into the assessments for ELL students are shown by the TEA’s own research to not work. Any assessment of my child is not about content knowledge, because the language gap prevents accurate assessment by standardized test. Why should I subject my child to a system that has pre-determined the outcome by its means of assessment? The assessment violates his rights under federal law, especially when the outcomes are used to impose punitive educational outcomes. You can send your kids if you want, but my decision not to has nothing to do with just deciding we don’t feel like being assessed.

February 16, 2016 at 9:38 am

Being a parent of 5 beautiful children who are all individually intelligent I have to disagree with opting out of standardized tests sends the message you are indicating. Two of my children have special needs. One makes A’s and B’s on report cards; however, bombs assessment tests. From outer appearance it is hard to see that she has ADHD and suffers HIGH Anxiety. These tests send her over the edge. They beat her self esteem down and she feels like a failure although she has worked her buns off all year. The schools have been great with accommodations…such as small group testing etc…..but the results are the same.

My youngest child is ADHD and DYSLEXIC. He is highly intelligent. High IQ. But he learns and tests different then other children. Without going into the reasons why not all children fit into the mold of these tests I simply just want to say these tests are not a true indicator of what accomplishments a child will make in their lifetime or what type of employee they will be in the workforce; nor are they an indicator of how good or bad a teacher was.

And finally I have yet to meet a teacher in the last 5 years that are for the STAAR or any common assessment test.

March 22, 2016 at 9:25 am

There is a huge difference between illegal testing and a strong work ethic. Illegal testing for funding is a complete violation of a student’s rights, a strong work ethic is something you morally instill in your child

March 7, 2020 at 1:31 pm

I graduated before any of this testing nonsense started, but there were some assignments I chose to opt out of. I was in high school and discussed them with my parents first. I then spoke to the teachers. One teacher was very understanding and provided an alternative. The other teacher was not so my parents talked with the principal. The principal suggested an alternate assignment.

In the business world, I have also had to refuse assignments when my boss gave me too many to complete on time. I was working 12-16 hours a day and knew one more job would mean I would miss deadlines. He wasn’t happy, but I was firm.

Sometimes you just have to stand your ground.

February 8, 2016 at 6:39 am

Thank you for gathering all of this information. Could you tell me more about unenrolling before STAAR and then re-enrolling after it’s over? I have a 4th grader now but I wonder if this would work for 5th when they must pass to advance. Would you keep this a secret or tell the school that you are doing it? What is the worst case fallout of unenrolling to avoid the test?

February 15, 2016 at 9:22 pm

I’m still confused about the scoring part – if we opt out, does my child get a zero score?

February 16, 2016 at 5:15 pm

If they are absent, no. If they go, and refuse the assessment in person, it is scored to the minimum scale score. Does it matter? Do you think a “zero” on an assessment that you didn’t attempt means anything? Do you think colleges, employers, or futures spouses will inquire about your child’s STAAR score?

The threat of a “zero” is nothing but a school effort to intimidate parents who were raised with the myth of the permanent record. It is a shame it still works.

February 18, 2016 at 6:14 pm

“My recommendation is, if you decide to permit your child to be assessed, to make a written request that all of his classroom and testing accommodations be given to him at the time STAAR is administered”

My apologies, what is or are, “classroom and testing accommodations?”

Steve Heckler.

February 19, 2016 at 10:52 am

Students with IEP and 504 plans usually receive certain accommodations in the classroom and in testing to permit them to fully participate in their education notwithstanding their disability. For example, a dyslexic student might have passages read to them and then they answer the question. A student with ADHD might take their tests in a quiet setting. There really are no limits on what accommodations students might need. It is an individualized decision. A parent of a student with an IEP/504 plan should request in writing that they be allowed to use the same accommodation for STAAR that they receive in the classroom.

February 21, 2016 at 9:18 am

I have never in my life dealt with a more difficult school than Hutto ISD. I think they spend more time threatening the kids than they do educating them. We tried to opt out & since then every single time my child is absent for a true illness we get threatening letters & harrassed. One 17 year old boy was removed from school by the principal last week due to absences. He was told to go get his GED, that they would no longer allow him to be enrolled there & the local judge here granted the schools petition. Now that I have more knowledge & a better understanding of my rights, Im going to fight this tooth & nail.

My other child attended Connections Academy, which is a K-12 online school. We also tried to opt out of the state testing & I received an email from the Connections Academy principal stating my child would be immediately unenrolled if we refused the test. Education has gone down the tubes since I was in school. I feel very sad for my children, and their children, if something isnt done to bring back the old school ways of education.

Thank you so very much for this website. Its given me a glimpse of hope and courage to let my voice be heard & to do what I know is best for my children.

March 9, 2016 at 6:25 pm

My son is in 4th grade at a state school. Can I opt out for only writing STAAR, and allow him to take the reading and math? (He completed visual therapy and still needs to catch up on writing, when he writes, he struggles and I don’t want him to struggle for hours).

There is three make-up days for STAAR this year, if my son misses (stays home) on March 29th. Do I need to keep him at home for three more days during the make-up days?

March 25, 2016 at 4:50 am

I have put my son in a dual credit high school. He has been home schooled for 4 years, he was accepted to the dual credit high school for 9th grade thru 12th. They basically told me he has to take a Starr test to be able to start with the dual credit programs. If he didnt pass at least 3 of them, then he would not qualify for dual credit. How do we go about opting out of this one?

March 28, 2016 at 10:04 pm

I sent two opt out letters for my 9th grader taking STAAR English 1 tomorrow. I have decided he can take a field trip to the museum in Dallas instead. This is the last email response from the high school principal below:

As stated in the letter sent out; students who are in attendance on the day of testing and choose not to participate or refuse to mark their answers on the answer document or in the online form and who are in grades 3-8 or are taking an EOC for the first time, will have their tests submitted for scoring as is, resulting in not meeting the required standard.

Local public school districts lack the authority to exempt students from STAAR testing, a state-mandated assessment. Further, Section 26.010 does not allow a parent to remove a child from school to avoid a test, and a moral objection cannot exempt a child from satisfying grade level or graduation requirements under state or local standards.

House Bill 5, 83rd Legislative Session, added new TEC §28.0217 to require each school district to provide accelerated instruction in the applicable subject area each time a student fails to perform satisfactorily on an end-of-course (EOC) assessment instrument.

This is a state decision, not a local decision.

Your thoughts on this?

March 29, 2016 at 8:52 pm

Today my son went with the letter to school and he was pulled aside by the principal who told him his mama was wrong, threatened him with retention if he didn’t erase the “refused” and do the test. I with my attorney will address how they thought bullying and scaring a boy with autism into erasing his “answer” was acceptable. They said any student present on testing day must take the test; I corrected them and said I understand they must GIVE/ADMINISTER the test but you cannot force a child to write and forcing them to erase answers (even if it is “refused”) is illegal and a mistest.

March 29, 2016 at 11:08 pm

Details on the school and grade level? Do you have a lawyer. This is so wrong! Please email me details at [email protected] , including attorney contact! Outrageous – that principal needs to be reported to TEA for testing irregularities

April 6, 2016 at 11:57 am

Thank you, I have been discussing these issues with my son’s school district. So glad to hear there are advocates out there. My son incurred a TBI, is on homebound teaching, has very little working memory, thankfully has learned to write again, remembers some multiplication tables, can read & provide his own hygiene. His physicians ordered “No Testing” of any kind…we know he has deficits. BUT…they showed up anyway with STAAR test in hand. The teacher was turned away – this was confusing & stressful for my recovering son.

Thank you again for your article. It will be followed & presented to the director of pupil services for my district.

April 13, 2016 at 1:56 pm

My mother was a principle and an educator for almost 40 years and she recently told me that action is being taken seriously and that next year her principle friends say that they are positive that testing will be done away with in the State of Texas. Let’s hope so!

May 12, 2016 at 6:25 am

I live in Rockport, TX. My wife works for the school district. If a senior refuses to take the STAR test, there are no conditions where they will be allowed to graduate. Also, ACISD is very strict on truancy, they have multiple parrents and students fined and jailed for missing school.

May 13, 2016 at 9:14 pm

Well this is simply not true, in that the TEA has substitute assessments available. Also, under SB 149, since a senior only needs to pass 3 of 5 to graduate, they could refuse the other two and still graduate.

I hope your school district has educated itself on the new truancy laws and is not making bogus threats about “3 unexcused absences in 4 weeks.”

January 11, 2017 at 11:31 pm

Is this the most updated form?

January 24, 2017 at 10:11 pm

Are there any updates to the content posted on this site, such as what happened to the letter sent by the Representative regarding parental rights and ESSA?

If someone can refer me to more recent updates (post Nov 2016), I would greatly appreciate it.

Good site – glad I found it.

January 31, 2017 at 10:12 pm

My child is in 5th grade. If I opt her out of the STAAR test, I know that I can fight the accelerated summer school. However, are there any resources to help me fight the remedial math class that they will make her take in 6th grade. She will have to give up her only elective. Thanks!

May 5, 2017 at 7:53 pm

My child is in 5th grade and has taken the first administration of the STAAR. He is now getting ready to take the 2nd round because he failed both math and reading. My question is this if he does not pass the math and reading will he have to go so summer school and then take the 3rd round of STAAR testing? What can I do to prevent this from happening? I feel that 2 times are enough. He gets all A’s and B’s on his report card. Please help!

May 30, 2017 at 2:31 pm

I have a junior that the school is telling him he can’t graduate without passing the staar. Does all this information pertain to him as well?

December 10, 2017 at 8:36 pm

I personally don’t care about hurting the school system. The system is a fraud. I don’t agree with all of the testing. Teachers graduate, take a state test, still not good. A doctor graduate, take state test. A lawyer, etc. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great people in the world. Putting all of this pressure on a child, does not prepare them for the real world. Yes I did say fraud. America has one of the lowest education Rating in the world. Oh, yes don’t forget in texas….read the small print on all those enrollment forms…..when you child is on the premises, on school bus, taking field trips….the school is not responsible for any inconvenience or tragedy..

February 12, 2018 at 1:40 am

Hello- I am glad you ae devoted so much of your time helping people. I have a curious question-If a child in 8th grade fails a starr test in say English and Math, then can he write refused on his retake and it can end right there with a zero?

July 24, 2018 at 11:48 am

Yes, absolutely.

May 6, 2018 at 2:48 pm

My son is on a 504 with ADD. He’s passed all his STAAR exams and passed all his classes up to this point. He is in 8th grade and he just failed his Math STAAR by 4pts. His average is an 88 in math and he’s a strong student. Even his math teacher was shocked. They want him to take the May 14th exam but the results wont be in until June 7th so they want him to attend from June 4th until June 7th. I don’t see the point in this because he’s passed all his classes and math class. I dont want to punish him for being an A/B student. He gets mad fun of enough as it is. Also he’s already enrolled in summer camps and we have vacation coming up so sending him from 4-7th wouldn’t matter bc he can’t attend rest of Summer School. I asked for a Grade Placement Review and was told he could not get one until the END of summer which will leave him and I in knots with the thought of possibly not being promoted to 9th. Honestly, can they NOT promote him even with all his passing grades and passing English STAAR but missing Math STAAR by 4pts???? I’ve heard that if he attends summer school and attempts all 3 STAARs that he WILL be promoted but we cant do 2 STAAR or even 3 but NOT attend summer school. Everyone is confident he’ll pass on May 14th but I’m not a person who likes to chance things. I’m already beating myself up that i didn’t try to opt out. Teacher was very nice but told me the problem was that i let him take the first test. If i hadn’t then we might have gone straight to GP review. She also said the problem with opting out is missing so much school and toying with truancy. Shes very kind and says she absolutely hates the STAAR, as did the counselor. Their hands are so tied as are mine. What can i do? He already thinks he’s “stupid”…..summer school will make this worse

May 6, 2018 at 5:56 pm

Their hands are not tied. You might think they are being nice but so much of what you are being told is nonsense. He doesn’t have to attend summer school. They must schedule a GPC is he does not pass the second administration. That GPC will determine what instruction is needed to prepare for the third. Parents can request waiver of the 3rd administration. Schools can agree to waive and do a GPC right away. Your school is lying to you left and right and you seem to be falling for it. What district are you in?

May 17, 2018 at 9:56 am

At my son’s school, the kids who opt out of STAAR testing go on field trips for those days! They’re not extravagant trips, but they visit a local college or go to the zoo.If a parent opts out, the school ensures that child won’t have to sit in silence for 8 hours or be absent.

December 4, 2018 at 10:44 am

what school is that?

May 30, 2018 at 10:02 am

Hi! I have been interested in opting out of the STAAR test since my middle son went back to PS from home school. I decided to put in a smaller district so I kinda dropped it so that I didn’t create unnecessary waves at a school we are guests at. This upcoming year (he will hopefully be in 6th grade) I decided to bring him back to our local district. I called the local admin office since he failed the first administration of the reading by 4 questions and we are currently waiting on the results of the second administration and I was already told its ILLEGAL and i have no other choice but to have him test since I brought up that I don’t want him to quit school due to not passing STAAR tests. The lady of course got super mad and raised her voice (didn’t yell) as, i guess a scare tactic. Little does she know that I have super research skills and already looked into all this! Just looking to get this out since its not even day 1 and have already been (IMO) scared off from opting out. Just wanted to say thanks for this website, I found it years ago and am elated that its still here. Blessings!

June 4, 2018 at 11:10 pm

If you have done your research why are you scared to opt out?

January 18, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I have always said that when my child finally gets to 3rd grade, I will opt out Staar and now the time has come. We move from a big city Houston to a smaller one Colmesneil,Tx and I know the school is going to fight me, when I tell them in the meeting next week that my child will not be taking the test. She’s a straight A student… should I be worry about the school keeping her back a grade by not taking the Staar test??

January 20, 2019 at 4:32 pm

3rd grade is not a promotion year.

February 11, 2019 at 12:44 pm

How does opting out affect seniors? My son has never been a strong test taker…he gets test anxiety. He has passed his classes to graduate. Unfortunately, I have been informed that he won’t be able to walk with his class because he’s only passed 2 parts of EOC. I’m tired of my child being stressed out and discouraged.

February 11, 2019 at 5:19 pm

You need to read this article: What About High School

March 13, 2019 at 7:42 am

I will not allow the starr test to hurt or hold my boys back. I will fight for them but considering the study all year for this test and not taking it in certain ways can cost a teacher her job or hurt the school district when it comes to money I make them take it. I mean they have worked hard all year for this test. No I do not agree or like this test and will fight for my kids if they tried to hold them back or anything because of their scores. I really wish they would get back to teaching what these kids really need to learn and not this test. Heck to get into college you have to take the sat test so why every year a starr test. Let’s actually teach them.

March 13, 2019 at 2:15 pm

Carrie, I went back and forth on whether to approve your comment and refute it point by point, or just delete it as emblematic of the problems of sheepish parents that plague this state. I’m glad you are willing to fight for your kids AFTER they take the STAAR assessment, but you are wrong if you think that somehow means they won’t be hurt or held back by it. First off, realize that less than 10% of the kids who fail STAAR in 5th or 8th grade are ever retained. Chances are, even if your kids bomb STAAR, they won’t be held back. So don’t pat yourself on the back too hard for your willingness to fight. But make no mistake, your kids are being hurt by it EVERY SINGLE DAY. You yourself say “they have worked hard all year for this [assessment]” and they “study all year for this [assessment].” Then you add, “Let’s actually teach them.” Do you not see the huge gap in your logic here. You care about them taking this BS assessment because the school overemphasizes it all year, you think kids should have authentic learning and not just test prep, but because the schools want to prep all year, you make your kids take it. Hello? If the STAAR were a heroin addict, you’d cook the dope up for them. Oh and other than $25 attendance money, schools aren’t hurt financially if your kid doesn’t take the STAAR. That’s a myth. A kid not taking STAAR costing a teacher a job? No. Refusing STAAR while in attendance? The chance of one kid in isolation causing an issue is miniscule. But even so, why is the well being of your kid less important than the speculative future employment of a teacher? Do you send your husband to rent videos at the adult video store on the off chance that if he doesn’t the clerk might lose his job? Is that really your responsibility?

You say you are against this assessment? Act like it and stop enabling and excusing the bad behavior of the TEA. Start with denying them what they prize the most: your kid’s data.

March 21, 2019 at 7:09 am

Good morning and thank you for putting all of this information together. I am about to inform the school that my daughter will not be taking this joke of an assessment. My question is about a statute quoted in the beginning of the opt-out letter. The Texas Education Code 26.010 states that “A parent is not entitled to remove the parent’s child from a class or other school activity to avoid a test or to prevent the child from taking a subject for an entire semester.” Does the religious/moral objection supplant that inability to avoid a test or is that they don’t refer to it as a test but an assessment. Sorry for my confusion on this. Thank you again for putting this all together. I was a student in Texas that had to take the silly TAAS? test and it was a joke then.

Also, I apologize if this has been asked/answered before. I just didn’t see anything on it, or missed it entirely. Thank you for your time.

March 22, 2019 at 3:29 pm

Please read this article.

Five Responses

April 2, 2019 at 6:36 pm

My daughter is in eight grade and wants to opt out of the staar. She has been accepted and is attending a private school next year (independent from the school district), and I was wondering if it would affect her at all with highschool? If she was to choose to move to a school within our district later on in highschool would it affect getting in or not? Thank you!

April 3, 2019 at 10:24 am

If the private school that she is going to is accredited, when she returns to public school she will be in the same grade level as she was at the private school. Missing STAAR will have no impact on that.

April 16, 2019 at 10:47 am

Good Morning,

I’m extremely excited to read everyone’s responses and have submitted the OPT out letter to my daughter’s 3rd grade teachers and principals.This test has caused her so much anxiety and stress she went from having 1 teacher teaching all subjects in the 2nd grade to 5 different teachers and this staar test requirements. It important that the kids grasp core curriculum all school to help further their education, not all core curriculum and tons of prep test for this staar test. I will report back on what becomes of the opting out for all of those who are curious to know the outcome. Thanks ADMIN For the site and templates, i greatly appreciate your help.

May 5, 2019 at 9:46 pm

i was looking on the Birdville ISD website and found this “No “Opting Out” By law, all students enrolled in Texas public schools are required to be assessed with the appropriate STAAR tests during the designated testing windows. The Texas Education Code does not provide students and parents an option of not testing. The district is required to provide test materials to all students in attendance and mark test answer documents as Score if students have the opportunity to complete the test. Students in grades 5 and 8 who do not pass the reading or mathematics test are subjected to SSI requirements, which includes receiving accelerated instruction and retesting. Students in other grade levels who fail STAAR are also required to be provided accelerated instruction. “

May 7, 2019 at 10:48 am

Tell it to the thousands of parents who have opted out. Seriously do you even read the articles here or do you just post school district lies here? This nonsense is rebutted in about 20 places on this site and by hundreds upon hundreds of parents who have successfully opted out or refused AI.

May 13, 2019 at 5:15 pm

Due to truancy threats for the school district, I sent my son to school on a testing day. Never Again! I hand delivered my moral and ethical objection letter to the administration and his teacher earlier this year. My son wrote refused on his test today, but he was unable to turn it in as the teacher would not take it. He completed the exam because he felt pressured by the test admin to complete the STAAR exam. We have asked to convene an attendance committee to make up seat time and/or decide if he met the requirements of the class.

February 14, 2021 at 11:46 am

Take a look at these lies. https://www.friscoisd.org/departments/testing/standardized-testing-faq

March 1, 2021 at 2:52 pm

What are the 2020-2021 updates for opting out for virtual learners? I have heard conflicting information. This source says TEA is requiring virtual learners to come in person, but another source says TEA changed that and is not requiring virtual learners to come in person for STAAR. Thank you.

March 1, 2021 at 3:50 pm

Sorry, I meant to include the source for my comment above.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/Texas-Education-Commissioner-online-staar-test-15943346.php

March 23, 2021 at 9:43 am

My child has advance math in 8th grade and was told she will not receive her high school credit if she does not take the math staar. She was told she can pass the class but no credit and will have to take that class again the 9th grade.

April 1, 2021 at 3:18 pm

We have heard several reports of this, but that is not any requirement in the Education Code that we can find. I would ask the school to provide a copy of the statute, regulation or policy they are relying on to say this. Do they say just take it, or take and pass it?

March 24, 2021 at 9:44 pm

How do we (parents) know that the school has entered “O” for other rather than “A” for absent when we do not take our online learner student into school during the STAAR administration days? Is there a way to verify this?

“Note for 2020-2021: The TEA has expanded online testing windows to five weeks, which makes staying home almost impossible unless you choose to withdraw your student. On the positive side, for virtual learners, the TEA has decreed that the student must come to campus to be assessed, so as a parent, you can simply keep them home. They will also be score O for other instead of A for absent if this happens. Not a big deal practically, but it does give us a tool to measure opt outs this spring!”

April 1, 2021 at 3:20 pm

I am not sure how that Code is reported in the online portal. I would send a letter reminding the school of what they need to do.

April 8, 2021 at 12:50 pm

Are these steps accurate for high schoolers this year as well? I see references to middle school but not high school.

April 8, 2021 at 2:47 pm

Yes, but be sure to read the article What About High School .

April 15, 2021 at 5:33 pm

My daughter is in 5th grade, and is doing remote learning right now. They offered to make accommodations for my daughter at school on testing day, but I politely declined. This was her teacher’s response “I will let (the principal) know. She will be put into math and reading tutorials in 6th grade and won’t be able to take any honors classes.” Can they do this?

March 11, 2022 at 1:14 pm

Does this encompass the STAAR Alt 2 as well? I teach 5th-6th self-contained class, and this test is ridiculously difficult for my students. Most of my students can’t even read and just randomly choose answers. They have to take it because they are “able” to choose answers. This is so absurd.

March 12, 2022 at 3:56 pm

“have to”

Yes, it encompasses all STAAR. Obviously, in this case, parents will have to be more active, but see our latest article on parental refusal and the TEA.

March 31, 2022 at 2:26 pm

This website is honestly a bunch of BS! I agree with not wanting to take the test but the clause this website states is clear and explicit: “(a) A parent is not entitled to remove the parent’s child from a class or other school activity to avoid a test or to prevent the child from taking a subject for an entire semester. (b) This section does not exempt a child from satisfying grade level or graduation requirements in a manner acceptable to the school district and the agency.” This whole website is just spewing misinformation. Students who would pass the test otherwise are now being “opted out” (won’t get their diploma) because of this website.

April 5, 2022 at 9:07 pm

Sigh, you might want to read more than one article before you decide you have a clue about what you are talking about. We are absolutely clear about the process, the issues, and the plans for graduation. Sounds like you have an agenda or a comprehension issue, Lura. I have an idea, why don’t you and I do an online debate and we’ll see who knows the issues better. [email protected] Let’s set it up.

April 6, 2022 at 12:37 pm

Lura — *exactly* what information is misinformation? Please cite what you’re seeing here that will result in not getting a diploma. Scores of parents have opted their kids out of STAAR and EOCs and they’ve gotten their diplomas. Schools are required to administer STAAR, however parents do not have to allow their kids to participate. Grade promotion is not dependent on STAAR, and as long as classes are passed, and credits are earned, STAAR can (and should) be made irrelevant.

There is a TEA representative (Julie Cole) who outlined how schools may accept parental opt-outs/refusals without fighting and without penalties. So there are sanctioned methods for this to be done. These are the methods that are provided on this site — so no misinformation is being shared with anyone. What BS are you referring to?

The TEA itself even has standards set in it’s own publications in regard to middle and high school students who use alternate assessments instead of EOCs to meet graduation requirements (so therefore there is a method that is “acceptable to the… agency”). Here you go, take a look: https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Texas%20Assessment%20Program%20FAQs%2004.04.18.pdf

April 6, 2022 at 2:34 pm

Ma’am I don’t know why you want a flawed, unhelpful, data mining, expensive assessment but you are totally wrong about its falling for a scam. I’ve been a member and successfully used the info here to opt the kids out. Not submitting to STAAR will not prevent any child from being a diploma. There are substitutes to most EOCs, there are projects given through IGC to satisfy graduating requirements and if all else fails cvep can be used to get a certified diploma. You really need to have facts before spouting uninformed nonsense.

April 6, 2022 at 6:21 pm

Calm down KAREN! You’re the one spewing misinformation, and it is because of people like YOU that some kids won’t get their diploma. GET OUT OF HERE!

Parents, I can assure you this website has put together all legal and valid information and done in a very great manner. My freshman child has indeed used his PSAT score to substitute the EOC assessment. My senior refused her History exam and successfully completed requirements through the IGC. My two Elementary aged children have never taken the STAAR. And you know who guided me into ensuring all the information here is valid? Not just the administrators of this site but TEA themselves.

April 7, 2022 at 6:01 pm

My three are graduating this year from Waltrip High School this year. They used a substitute assessment for English and only took one EOC history Test because they could not score high enough on the substitute assessment for Math. . They are also attending a four-year college next year.

April 6, 2022 at 12:13 pm

Lura I am here to prove you wrong as my child has already used the TEA APPROVED substitution tests for STAAR. So what kind of supporting information do you have that backs up your claims? I know I have my supporting information that debunks your claims. 🤷🏼‍♀️

April 29, 2022 at 11:19 pm

Hi Laura, my daughter is a senior this year with Connections Academy online school( online public school based in Houston, Tx). She’s had good grades her entire high school years. We found out last month she has to take the US History STAAR for not taking it in 2020. She hasn’t taken a history class this year at all. So that is added to everything else she’s doing to graduate!! What are the other things students can do to grafuate I’ve been hearing about? My son who is in 7th, is also freaking out about this test( also with Connections), we were also told she cannot graduate unless she passes. Thanks for any help!!

May 1, 2022 at 8:06 pm

Has she passed three EOCs (or substitute assessments?) If so, she can graduate by IGC. You need to read this article: But They Have to Pass STAAR to Graduate

Also, Connections is owned by Pearson — the company that makes STAAR. I’d recommend a new school.

April 6, 2022 at 12:24 pm

You sure sounds like a school admin. Which one are you-Principal or teacher? I assure you there are plenty of Texas kids who have graduated without taking STAAR. You should take time to read this site better. You may be able to help your children or children at your school not have to be subjected to the STAAR.

April 6, 2022 at 12:39 pm

Laura, parents have been opting their children out of the STAAR for a while now, and watching them walk across the stage to receive their diploma. Nothing on this site is incorrect, and the person who put it together works tirelessly to stay up to date on the laws regarding all the information he shares. Not a single college or university even glances at STAAR when accepting students. Also, the TEA statement you so proudly quoted uses the word ‘test.’ Let me define that for you: “a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something, especially before it is taken into widespread use” (a simple google search, copied and pasted.) The STAAR is not a test, it’s an assessment, which is not the same as a test. The definition of the word ‘assessment’ is “ the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something” (yet another super easy google search.) Basically, a test determines how much knowledge you’ve retained on a specific subject, while an assessment, in this situation the STAAR, decides whether or not your “smart” enough to thrive in life. You should really educate yourself thoroughly before spewing your negative opinion. I’m calling it an opinion because nothing you said is a fact. My children have not reached graduation age yet, but I’m here to tell you, as the parent, I have every right to opt out of STAAR, and anything it entails. And I, along with all the other parents who utilize this website, will continue fighting for my children.

April 6, 2022 at 12:50 pm

Lura, my junior is set to graduate on track next year. She has substitute assessments for everything but US history, but we have a plan for that. She will refuse the exam next month so that she has an “attempt” and then we will call an IGC. She is in dual enrollment US history so she is creating a portfolio of her work to submit that. My freshman already has algebra I substituted with last year’s PSAT. His English I is substituted with his PSAT from the fall. He took the ACT last weekend to substitute for biology. Follow Scott’s advice, he definitely knows what he is doing.

April 6, 2022 at 1:43 pm

I’m guessing you are simply pushing an agenda (what is unknown) since you have not done any legwork. My senior is about to graduate and has never done staar (ps it’s an assessment not a test). Her substitute EOC’s were approved in writing via school admin last fall. I’m even more curious to know why you are invested in STAAR and promoting erroneous info?

April 6, 2022 at 6:51 pm

Lura, My child is scheduled to take the English Ii EOC tomorrow. His campus assessment coordinator will put his name on a STAAR answer sheet, mark it “S”, and send it off to the TEA. He will not even go to school in the morning to refuse in person. The district will mark it as attempted and wait until he takes the ACT next year to use it as an alternative assessment. I sent a single email to the district director of accountability and assessment. My child will return to campus for sixth period tomorrow.

Why was there was no pushback or attempt to make this more painful than it needs to be? This will be the fifth year my child has refused STAAR. It was tenuous at first, but I learned the facts, educated my district, wouldn’t take no for an answer. When you have facts on your side all the petty arguments and manipulation disappear. I learned all the facts here.

April 6, 2022 at 7:04 pm

Lura, actually what you said IS THE MISINFORMATION!

Thanks this website and the fb group my sophomore has now 3 STAAR assessments subbed already. Alg 1 was waived by covid, eng 1 subbed by psat, eng 2 subbed by tsia. All this towards GRADUATION

April 6, 2022 at 8:35 pm

Lura, debate with Scott please as he requested. It would provide you with a platform to share your information with us; then in turn, you can learn the truth of the matter.

May 11, 2022 at 2:53 pm

Are there amy specific types of lawyers that help with this in case it gets ridiculous? My bc daughter is going to high school next year and I don’t want her to take these tests.

June 2, 2022 at 1:46 pm

Can’t opt out for senior year. My son has a long long history of failing the English STARR. Even though he is dyslexic and tries really hard and has accomodations, he still can not pass it. Now they want to talk about him not graduating, even though he will have enough credits. What does a mom do now?

June 2, 2022 at 7:56 pm

But They Have to Pass STAAR to Graduate Graduating By Committee – General Ed Students What About High School? (updated 2019)

How many EOCs has he taken? How many has he passed? Which ones is he still missing? Is he GenEd, 504 or SpEd?

July 5, 2022 at 10:56 am

What of my child already took his STAAR test freshman year and did not pass them, but passed all his classes. They are requesting he take classes(by taking these he will not have any electives) to assist him so he can retake the test sophomore year. Can I still opt him out?

July 16, 2022 at 11:54 am

You need to read these articles about high school:

What About High School? (updated 2019) But They Have to Pass STAAR to Graduate Graduating By Committee – General Ed Students

It is illegal for them to remove him from electives in order to put them in STAAR tutoring. DO NOT AGREE TO THIS. You can always opt out, but you must have a graduation plan in place for high school.

August 2, 2022 at 5:01 pm

What about high school kids – my child’s high school counselor told me – without passing the 5 required exams – they only get a certificate of completion and not an actual high school diploma and without that he will be unable to enter the military as he plans ??

August 2, 2022 at 6:44 pm

This website contains numerous articles about High School Opt Out and graduation. Try this:

Graduating By Committee – General Ed Students

As a side note, the first parent we know who used the CVEP process did it precisely so her kid could report on time for military induction and it was completely successful. You just need to be prepared to tend to your needs, not the school’s.

August 4, 2022 at 8:23 am

Does anyone know if the same process of sending a letter for another test like the TELPAS is appropriate. My now 8th grader still keys being revived from class four times for ,,1 and a half to two hours for a test she doesn’t need anymore. She has “lost” all her Spanish dice second grade and is taking pre ap classes including English just enrolled in Spanish to learn it, but they keep taking her out for an English language proficiency test? This doesn’t make any sense. They finally barely responded something to the effect she hasn’t passed advanced high in speaking and something to the reading staar score. My kid doesn’t want to miss her classes anymore

August 22, 2022 at 10:29 am

Yes same process. You will need to customize your objections to TELPAS. The other thing is that at her age, she can start refusing in person. Just say No thank you, my parents do not allow me to participate in this. Prepare the school so they will send her back to class when she says this.

February 14, 2023 at 11:30 pm

I opted out but never heard a reply….no one has ever opted out before so I’m worried.

March 23, 2023 at 9:28 pm

You should follow up with the school to determine how they intend to facilitate your refusal to participate in assessment. I advocate presenting a plan to them and then trying to work out a solution they can agree to.

March 30, 2023 at 4:40 pm

Great information, thank you! Coming at this from a different perspective: my child took US History as an online course over the summer of 2020 and passed with a 95. At the time it seemed like a good use of their time so they could add in a different extracurricular this year as a junior. She has no interest in re-learning the material for the STAAR this year while she is studying for AP exams. Even though she already has credit for US History, I presume she will be expected to take the STAAR too?

April 6, 2023 at 2:11 pm

Yes but if she gets a 3 or better on AP History she can substitute that for STAAR!

March 30, 2023 at 9:24 pm

I have a curiosity. All of my older children are in advanced classes. I have one son in elementary, no advanced classes (because they don’t offer them in his grade level. He is well above his grade level, but he has a 5. Last year we went on vacation during the STAAR test. I told the school we wouldn’t be here. They didn’t seem to care when I told them. Two days later the teacher called and begged for my son to take the test. He had one more day of school before we left. They gave him all of the tests in that day, by himself. He had an IFSP, he has a 504 and IEE. I am just curious why they fought so hard for him to take it.

Probably because as a 504 student he is part of a subgroup that they wanted to make certain participation/achievement results in. Just my guess. Stop enabling the system and opt out!

April 1, 2023 at 9:30 pm

I have a teacher friend saying that opting out is no longer an option. Is this true?

April 6, 2023 at 2:10 pm

Does the state own your kids?

You can opt out.

Stop Waiting for Permission; Make Your Own Decisions

April 6, 2023 at 11:04 am

Are we still able to opt out a student in the 9th-12th grade? If so, whats the deadline for the opt out and how do you go about the process? We have testing in about a month and would like to opt out. Advice and info greatly appreciated!! 04/05/23

April 6, 2023 at 2:07 pm

Of course you can. In high school, you will have to form a plan for graduation that does not include STAAR. Read these two articles for more information.

As for how to go about it, you are literally reading the Step by Step article. Can’t say anything more than that. As for when to give notice: When DO I Give My Opt Out Notice

April 11, 2023 at 11:26 am

My son goes to connections academy. Online public school, (not considered homeschool) so he’s assigned Houston school district t in Texas. I just submitted that I plan on sending an opt-out letter. I have a feeling they are going to come back with not letting him attend next year if he doesn’t take the staar. If that happens what can, or should I do?

April 11, 2023 at 1:00 pm

When you make a decision to enroll in a charter school you give up certain parental rights. You can of course refuse to allow your child to participate in STAAR. They may choose then to disenroll him. But parents can always refuse STAAR. If charter school is more important, then you have to make a choice.

April 13, 2023 at 8:21 am

My daughter is also in a Texas online school. I am working on the opt out letters now. However is it an option for me to just pull her out of the school so I can begin homeschooling?

April 13, 2023 at 12:29 pm

Yes, you always have the option to withdraw from school.

April 12, 2023 at 12:56 pm

My child is in 8th grade and attends Texas Online Preparatory School. Does the option to opt out also apply to online schools?

April 12, 2023 at 2:10 pm

A parent always has the option to opt out. Whenever you attend a school other than your home campus, and particularly a charter school, you have given up some of your parental rights. You can definitely opt out. The charter school may choose to re-enroll you next year or they may be punitive and you have to find another school. You basically have to decide if your charter school is more important to you than STAAR.

April 14, 2023 at 6:18 am

First year opting out, have looked online and through files and through comments and not sure if this question has been asked. So far the school has accepted our denial to participate in STAAR and will place my student in a separate room to work on other assignments during the STAAR test dates. We have a plan with my student to refuse or tab through if they School still presents the test to her. As we approach the STAAR dates a few classes are preparing students through STAAR based review assignments. She is practicing her refusal with denying participation. These assignments are now listed as zeros. Is there anything we can do or say to request a change of assignments since they are STAAR based and we are refusing to every extent possible, or does she have to complete those assignments regardless of them saying STAAR review as they are grade based for reporting? For perspective she is a mid-level student as is passing with low b, these missing assignments from this last week (4) are dropping her grade to now failing.

April 14, 2023 at 9:53 am

You can always request an alternate assessment. But the school does not have to give you one. Remember, if they choose to do those assignments, at least those have no punitive consequences on other people!

April 18, 2023 at 7:54 am

Will you go to the next grade if you don’t take the star test.

April 18, 2023 at 1:37 pm

There is no STAAR based retention in Texas

April 19, 2023 at 9:30 am

My girls are transferred students at there school. I was told today that if I opted them out that it could go against them and they would not be allowed back. Does anyone have any information with something like this?

April 19, 2023 at 1:42 pm

Any school that is not your home campus can remove you for pretty much any reason. Whether they will actually do it or not is a different question

April 22, 2023 at 12:07 pm

But if their grades are low 70’s year round how would that impact their placement for the following grade level?**

April 22, 2023 at 4:07 pm

There is no STAAR based retention in Texas. Read you Boar policy EIE (Local) It will tell you how promotion is determined.

April 24, 2023 at 11:09 am

Link to “do not score letter” is unavailable

April 24, 2023 at 11:33 am

That’s because we no longer use it. I’ll update the Step by Step.

April 24, 2023 at 5:06 pm

So my daughter has yet to pass the STAAR test every year she has taken the test but is still passing all her grades..she can continue to go onto the next grade. She’s in 7th this year. She is so nervous and doesn’t test well at all. I remember taking a test when I was in school and never passed mine, and it didn’t prevent me from going to the next grade. Now they are telling the students that if they don’t pass the STAAR test that they will have to repeat the grade. I think this test is ridiculous…

April 26, 2023 at 4:10 pm

I love the information in here and have “off record” shared it with many parents. I think it is a shame that some schools put this pressure on both students and adults for this assessment. I read some comments that their teachers said there is no opt out and a response is that the teacher is lying. I personally did not know much about the STARR or some of the rights, so maybe those teachers didn’t know either and are just listing what they hear. Maybe this is a learning opportunity for them, too. But calling them (teachers) liars is not helpful. Now school campuses or districts lying is another story lol. Text is hard to decipher tone for me, so I may have interpreted some of the comments in a more defensive way than they were intended. Like I said, this has been one of my go-to websites to share with parents, because unfortunately, some schools bank on parents not knowing their rights.

May 23, 2023 at 11:33 am

Not defensive. Assertive. Parents are attacked by schools and their employees, sometimes including teachers, whenever they try to opt out. If you come to this site to do that, we’ll push back harder than you. That’s a promise.

May 3, 2023 at 11:50 pm

Will be keeping both of my 8th graders home tomorrow. One is in 504 and the other is in ARD. If I run into any problems I will update this.

May 25, 2023 at 2:07 pm

A friend of mine just got the dreaded summer school letter. Her son is a 3rd grader. They told her he didn’t pass math- scores aren’t out yet! They told her it was a new “ local” policy that he must attend summer school or he will be retained. I told her to absolutely refuse. Have you heard of other schools saying its their new policy?

July 19, 2023 at 4:21 pm

No, check board policy EIE Local

September 18, 2023 at 9:48 pm

I’m so thankful to have found this site! Thanks so much for creating such a helpful and encouraging resource for parents! ❤️

April 4, 2024 at 9:04 pm

Everything I seen on the TEA website says we can’t op them out. I have a son with dyslexia and hate for him to take the test. I called the principal to talk to her about it and she was rude and told me that there is no use to try. What do I need to do?

April 4, 2024 at 10:49 pm

We have given you the steps. You are the parent. Who raises your kids? You or the state. You do not have an obligation to damage your kid for the benefit of your school. Stop asking for permission. Stop Waiting for Permission; Make Your Own Decisions GOOD LUCK AND DO WHAT YOUR KID NEEDS!

April 4, 2024 at 10:50 pm

Also read this from the TEA! TEA Support Ticket – Refusal Without Testing Permitted

April 10, 2024 at 9:10 pm

Does opting out negatively impact your child in any way? Maybe the school looks on them negatively and it affects other areas of their school life? Or future possible scholarships, school rankings, etc.?

April 11, 2024 at 6:25 am

If you are asking could some adult be mean to your kid, of course. There are jerks everywhere. STAAR is not permitted to be used as part of GPA or class rank, so no impact there. Colleges don’t look at STAAR in admissions.

April 14, 2024 at 8:26 pm

I am wanting to send an OPT out letter for my kids (5th/8th grade) we live in Texas, does this letter still apply? Thank you.

April 16, 2024 at 10:48 am

If it didn’t it would not be on the website.

April 15, 2024 at 10:38 am

How does this work for high school students that are EOC testing?

April 16, 2024 at 10:47 am

READ OUR HIGH SCHOOL ARTICLES! One of many!

April 15, 2024 at 10:57 am

This was our kids schools response to the refusal. Can they make our kids do the 15 hours of accelerated instruction?

“Please be advised that, under state regulations, Willis ISD must present to all students the opportunity to take the mandated state assessment(s) to each child present at school on the state mandated testing date(s), with or without the form completed.

On behalf of your child, if you decline the opportunity to test, your child’s assessment will be scored as an “S”, which means the student will have NOT met standard (passed the assessment), by the Texas Education Agency. Students who do not participate in the testing opportunity will be required to complete a minimum of 15 hours of accelerated instruction to be in compliance with House Bill 1416.”

That is literally in Step 4 of this article.

April 16, 2024 at 8:26 pm

I am having trouble finding information for my kid’s situation. She is transferring into high school (from one in another state, with good grades) in the middle of junior year. She’s already taking AP and other advanced classes, but is being told she must take freshman and sophomore level classes and the associated STAAR tests.

April 16, 2024 at 9:15 pm

That is not correct. Let me find you the link you need.

April 16, 2024 at 9:17 pm

https://teastudentassessments.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040792311-What-are-the-STAAR-graduation-requirements-for-a-student-who-moves-into-a-Texas-public-high-school-from-out-of-state-or-country-or-from-a-private-school

Is the school she is currently in accredited?

April 18, 2024 at 1:17 pm

I have used every letter on this website. HAYS CISD Superintendent just gave my husband a letter stating that they are “denying our request”. What can I do now?? I am thinking of just withdrawing him from school. He’s 3rd grade

April 18, 2024 at 8:33 pm

You were expecting them to agree?

April 18, 2024 at 8:56 pm

Take a look at this page and video. It’s the usual option when a school is simply oppositional.

Tabbing Through

April 19, 2024 at 12:28 pm

We have received your request regarding your child and STAAR Summative in 2023-24. As a result of your request, the following actions will occur.

Scoring the STAAR Summative: The campus will follow the directions given from the Texas Education Agency in the District and Campus Coordinator resource: Students Who Choose Not to Respond: District testing personnel are required to provide testing opportunities to all students who are in attendance during the administration of an assessment. Students who choose not to participate or refuse to respond to test questions will have their assessments submitted for scoring, as both federal and state law require that all eligible students participate in state testing. Although state law provides families with the right to temporarily remove their child from a class or school activity if they have an objection to participation, it specifically does not allow families to do so to avoid a statewide assessment. (Resource: https://txassessmentdocs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ODCCM/pages/2793217963/Monitor+Paper+Administrations ) As a result, the child’s STAAR will be scored as a failure. Your child will be subject to any other actions required by the Texas Education Agency as a result of a failing STAAR score. The campus will determine the best placement for your child on the day of testing. Please note, the campus is obligated to maintain a secure test environment throughout the test administration in accordance with TEA test security requirements. Test security requirements may limit alternative locations or activities for students. He will be marked absent for RLA and Science STAARs because he was absent due to his teeth being pulled. He will be marked as a refusal for Math STAAR and the campus will follow the actions described above.

How do I respond? Please!

April 19, 2024 at 2:19 pm

Seriously though, what is it you want to respond to?

We know the TEA requires them to score refused assessments. Good. That’s a them problem, not a me problem. A scored assessments lets you deny Accelerated Instruction in the fall. That is a good thing. If anything, my response would be to say “you know we were only absent because we were refusing STAAR. Please mark both Science and Reading as S for score also. Have a great summer!”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Post Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

© 2022 Texas Parents' Educational Rights Network

Search Form Overlay

Search cta.org.

• Member Benefits
• Leader Resources
• Help Center
• 2024 NEA RA
• Facebook Link
• Twitter Link
• Instagram Link
• YouTube Link
• Click to print
• Share this page on Pintrest
• Share this page on Facebook
• Share this page on Twitter
• Comment on this article

April 12, 2019 Teaching & Learning

Standardized testing and parents’ right to opt out.

State law allows parents to opt out of state-mandated testing for their child. (The federal Every Student Succeeds Act affirms this right.) However, California also has specific regulations about what an educator can say to parents about opting out: Educators can inform parents of their right to opt out of high-stakes testing for their child, but cannot solicit or encourage parents to do so.

The state’s system of mandated and optional assessments is known as CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) and includes Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, California Alternate Assessments, and the California Science Test. CTA believes tests should be used to inform instruction and improve student learning. A true assessment of student achievement and improvement is always done through multiple measures and can never focus on just one test score. To learn more about CTA’s position on testing and opting out, and to access resources to help educators have conversations with parents (including materials in multiple languages), go to cta.org/optout .

#standardized testing

Leave a comment cancel reply.

Please post with kindness. Your email address willl not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Stay Informed

Stay up-to-date with all the latest california teachers news, events, and member benefits..

• Name * First Name Last Name

We appreciate your interest in California Teachers Association. Our Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used and disclosed by CTA.

By providing your phone number, you agree to receive text messages from California Teachers Association. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies.

• Welcome to Parenting Without Punishment
• How To Handle Parenting Challenges
• Conference Videos
• Books and Courses

Hate Homework? Here is an OPT OUT OF HOMEWORK Letter to School

For parents and children who dislike the impact of homework on their family time.  Here is a template of a letter to send to school before the first parent-teacher interviews.  It’s meant as a starting place for discussion of homework and schoolwork boundaries.

Dear Teacher

Thank you for teaching our child this year.  We as a family strive to live a balanced life that includes a variety of activities. Those activities include volunteering in the community, family social time, rituals and celebrations, part-time jobs, music and art lessons, sports, fellowship clubs, church and much-needed downtime.  We value those activities as much as learning academic subjects in school.

In order to make time for these activities; we need to establish boundaries that provide a fair division between school instructional time and homework that encroaches upon outside-school time.  Therefore, our family homework policy is as follows:

_________(Your Family Name Here) Family Homework Policy:

The school assignments that are not given adequate instructional class time to complete in school hours, will not be completed at home.

We expect our children to give their best effort and concentration in the ___ hours of instructional class time that the government legislates and the school provides in order for our children to complete the required credits and marks. They can also use any school spares they have to complete school work between the hours of 9:00am and 3:30pm. I expect the school to provide adequate time and instruction in class for the student to complete the government requirements of the entire course.

We expect that our children will not be socially penalized within the classroom for our implementation of the Family Homework Policy, and will not be academically penalized in terms of marks for work that can’t be completed within the allotted school time. The current available research supports our belief that supplemental homework is not required for adequate mastery of the subject matter.  We appreciate that you respect our decision on how to spend our time at home as much as we respect your decisions regarding your time/curriculum management at school.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Share to spread the concept of non-punitive parenting

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

About Judy Arnall, BA, DTM, CCFE

3 responses to hate homework here is an opt out of homework letter to school.

I was an aid for a teacher that had a students whose parents sent in one of these letters. That child was constantly behind in class and by the end if first grade, was one of the few children who could barely write her name by the end if the year.

wow, sounds like the child had a learning disability or someone wasn’t doing their job at school. My child was like that even with homework. I was always told I wasn’t doing enough at home or she was just being lazy. Turns out, she is dyslexic and the bones in her hands are older than her chronological age. We are still trying to get a final diagnosis on her hands.

Like Liked by 1 person

It’s a joy to find soomene who can think like that

Leave a comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Search for:

Judy’s Facebook Page

Recent Posts

• Repeal Section 43 – Canada’s Archaic “Spanking” Law that Allows Parents to Hit Their Small Children
• Handling Friend and Family Parenting Differences
• How To Make a Child Learn Independently?
• How To Actively Listen To Feelings
• The “YES” List
• Raising Money Smart Kids
• Tips For Applying To College and Universities
• Problem-Solving: When Time-outs, Grounding and Consequences Don’t Work
• Calm-Down Tools: 70 Ways to Calm Down and Reclaim Patience in the Heat of Anger
• How To Get More Patience
• Non-Punitive Screen-Time Family Contract
• The Playgroup Altercation: Your child is the victim
• The Playgroup Altercation: Your Child Hits Other Children
• Giving Kids Their Own Personal Space
• Teaching Sex Education By Age
• Solve Your Child’s Problem Sleep
• Co-Sleeping Safety Tips
• Co-Sleeping Benefits
• Top 10 Ways to Get Baby to Sleep
• Socialization: It’s More Than Just Having Friends
• Gift Giving from the Heart and Hands (instead of the wallet)
• Peaceful Parenting With Differing Parenting Styles
• 8 Parenting Myths Not Grounded in Research
• Attachment Parenting 101
• Advice from New Parents to New Parents
• Preparing for Parenthood
• Halloween Candy – Limit or Unlimited Access
• Building Kid’s Brains During Wait Times Without Electronics
• 10 Ways Kids Can Say “No!” to Peers
• Easy Grocery Shopping with Each Age and Stage
• How to Work At Home with a Deadline, Little Ones and No Sitter
• How to Survive Morning Madness and Afternoon Arsenic Hour
• The Stages of Play and Friendship
• Ways To Learn Math Without A Workbook
• Celebrate Your Toddler’s “NO!”
• Alternatives To Saying “No!” and Avoiding the Meltdown
• Breastfeeding Benefits
• Toddlers and Picky Eating Issues
• Managing Toddler Sleep Problems
• Leaving Baby for the First Time
• Letting Go of Tweens
• The Last Day of Parenting (After 29 Busy Years)
• Clever Comebacks for Bullying
• Why Do Toddlers Hit? Is it Genes or Environment?
• Screen Time Research – Who to Believe?
• How To Get Kids To Do Chores and At What Age?
• Combining a Business and Parenting
• The Science of Attachment Parenting
• Childhood Assault Must Be Made Illegal
• Video Games Gives Kids A Bigger Academic Edge Than Homework
• The Power of Positive Reinforcement
• Preschool: Nice But Not Necessary For Your Child’s Educational Success
• When Do Children Understand “Consequences?”
• Are Consequences Punitive?
• Respectful Cell/Mobile Phone Contract
• Consequences or Problem-Solving?
• Unschooling To University Book is Ready to Launch!
• Dads Matter!
• Screen Time Mitigates Summer Learning Loss
• Canadian Pediatric Society Announces a New Position Statement on Screen Time for Young Children
• You Don’t Have to Be Like Your Parents
• To Register for Kindergarten or Not
• How to Raise A Respectful Teen
• Baby Playtime: How Much is Enough?
• How to Handle a Bad Report Card
• Education Options for Preschool Children Ages 3-5
• Liberals favour appealing Section 43 – the spanking law
• Is It A Discipline Issue or Development Issue? Part 2 Problem-solving with Young Children
• 10 Common Worries of Prospective Homeschoolers and Unschoolers
• Is It a Discipline Issue or a Development Issue? Part 1 Young Children
• How to Help Soothe a Crying Baby
• Screen Free Play Ideas for Children of All Ages
• 10 Benefits of Living in a (low oil price) Recession
• Parenting teacher Judy Arnall urges Parenting with Patience in new book
• Parenting With Patience: How to Acquire More Patience
• Parenting With Patience – Is Yelling Harmful?
• Best Parenting Tips from the Trenches
• Yes, Your Two-year-old Can Do Chores!
• Sibling Rivalry Remedies
• Parenting With Patience
• How to Start a Babysitting Co-op
• Worried about Summer Learning Loss? Isn’t Minecraft Educational?
• Parenting in Public – Etiquette 101
• Parenting is the Ultimate Volunteer Job
• How to Help Your Child Understand Tragedies and Disasters
• Help! It’s Spring Break! Ideas for Family Fun
• Date Night: Stoking the Hearth of the Home
• Should Parents Argue in Front of the Kids?
• How To Keep Kids Busy Over the Holidays
• Are consequences a discipline tool or a form of punishment?

Ages and Stages

• Democratic Education
• Emerging Adult Children 19-25
• General Parenting
• Preschoolers 3-5
• School-Aged 6-12
• Teenagers 13-19
• Toddlers 1-2
• Uncategorized
• Unschooling/Self-Directed Education

Professional Parenting

Top Posts & Pages

• When Do Children Understand "Consequences?"
• Clever Comebacks for Bullying
• Repeal Section 43 - Canada's Archaic "Spanking" Law that Allows Parents to Hit Their Small Children
• Education Options for Preschool Children Ages 3-5
• Calm-Down Tools: 70 Ways to Calm Down and Reclaim Patience in the Heat of Anger
• Problem-Solving: When Time-outs, Grounding and Consequences Don't Work
• Why Do Toddlers Hit? Is it Genes or Environment?
• Co-Sleeping with School-Aged Children

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Take the Quiz: Find the Best State for You »

What's the best state for you ».

China Launches Campaign to Halt School Bullying, Excessive Homework

Students participate in a Go class at Changchun Street Primary School of Wuhan during a government-organized media tour following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, September 4, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/ File Photo

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Education said on Tuesday it was launching a campaign to address issues including excessive homework and bullying in schools, as part of efforts to boost students' mental health.

The announcement came a day after the ministry said it was carrying out mental health education for teachers and students, with particular focus on rural migrant children or those "left behind," whose parents work in large cities for much of the year.

The ministry's notice, published on its website, detailed 12 negative practices at schools, including encroachment during scheduled breaks, neglect and tolerance of bullying behaviour.

Beijing has, since 2021, tried to reform the education sector and ease academic pressure on students, clamping down on a $120 billion private tutoring industry to cut education costs. Many residents have cited high childcare and education costs as reasons not to have children.

The announcements come after the killing of a 13-year old boy in northern China, whose case triggered a heated media debate over juvenile crime and the plight of children left at home by migrant workers.

Three boys were arrested after they allegedly bullied and killed the student in the small city of Handan on March 10.

(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Join the Conversation

Tags: Hong Kong , education

America 2024

Health News Bulletin

Stay informed on the latest news on health and COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report.

Sign in to manage your newsletters »

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

You May Also Like

The 10 worst presidents.

U.S. News Staff Feb. 23, 2024

Cartoons on President Donald Trump

Feb. 1, 2017, at 1:24 p.m.

Photos: Obama Behind the Scenes

April 8, 2022

Photos: Who Supports Joe Biden?

March 11, 2020

Flag Display Rattles SCOTUS Experts

Lauren Camera May 17, 2024

Will Trump Testify in His Own Trial?

Laura Mannweiler May 17, 2024

Viral House Spat Shows Chaotic Congress

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 17, 2024

QUOTES: Trump on Gun Control Policy

Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder May 17, 2024

Leading Indicators: Economy Is Softening

Tim Smart May 17, 2024

Key Moments From Cohen Cross-Examination

Laura Mannweiler May 16, 2024