6 Hours and 40 Minutes

That is the amount of time that your child spends in school each day. This is also the topic that I am going to speak about the most at tonight's open house (here's a preview for those of you who are followers already and attending tonight). Six hours and forty minutes is a lot of time. When you think about it, your child may in fact spend more time here at school than awake at home with you. Let's do some math:

6hrs. 40min. is only the time in the building, we also need to add time on the bus if your child is not brought to school. If we allow thirty minutes travel time each way that is another hour and brings us to 7hrs. 40 min. Perhaps your child is involved in early morning art or music. You would need to add another hour which would bring your total to 8hrs. 40min.

If you let me use 7:00 a.m. as the time that your child gets up in the morning, that would give you one hour of awake time with your child. Let's say that your child arrives home from school at 4:00 p.m. and goes to bed at 9:00 p.m.. That gives you a total of five more hours with your child awake, bringing your total to 6 hours of awake time with your child. Please adjust the times accordingly to fit your lives. The point is this....where does your child spend more time awake? For most of you the answer will be here at school.

This fact determines many of my classroom policies. For example, homework. If we examine that five hours you have when your child gets home, how much of that time is spent doing homework? In my opinion, that time should be spent with you enjoying each other's company. This is why I will explain my homework policy as follows:

#1. NEVER spend more than 45 minutes on homework. NEVER! Yes, your child may have homework most nights, but my belief is that it should never be anything more than what can be completed in 45 minutes or less. I give the kids plenty of assignments and tasks in school that I use to assess them with on a daily basis. In addition, I give the students numerous times throughout the day to work on their homework assignments and complete most, if not all of it. What I ask is that students do not turn an assignment in until the next day so that if it is completed in school, you still get to look it over with him/her before it gets handed in.

If your child does come home with work and is struggling, please don't let them stress out all night. If he/she has put in a full and honest 45 minutes, stop them and write me a note on the assignment letting me know that the task was difficult and then I am able to address the problem during our support time here in school.

The numbers speak for themselves. Your child spends so much time with me that the last thing I want to do is invade or take away from the precious time that you have with your child. After all, I am a parent myself and I know firsthand how crazy things can get during the evening hours.

What I ask of you in return is that you spend that time I am not taking up with your child. Use it. Ask them about their day. Check in and see if everything is good with their friends. Tell them a joke and make them laugh. Use the time and enjoy your child being nine and ten years old...it will never happen again. Get them involved in something they enjoy without any pressure.

Other Policies:

#2 Let's be on the same side. Could you imagine how miserable your child would be if the place they spend the most time awake is a place they hate being? As your child's teacher, I ask for your help, support, and understanding. I have the safety and well being of fourteen little faces to think about each day....I am only one person. Your support is essential if I am to do everything I possibly can to make your child's fourth grade experience a positive one. If there is ever a problem, question, concern, please bring it directly to me first. Nothing is worse than finding out about a problem after it has been discussed with numerous other people and usually blown out of proportion. Feel free to email me at anytime. This is the easiest and fastest way to reach me.

#3. Have fun.

#4. Be involved.

Many thanks to all of you who are able to attend open house tonight. I look forward to seeing you all!

You should look as good as your outlook,
Mr. Fletcher