A teacher at Central Valley High School was arrested and escorted out of her classroom yesterday during fourth period for not assigning any homework to her students.
On Friday, students expected to have a substantial amount of homework due to a new Howard County “work-for-home” policy. Instead of following the new rules, Ms. Sydney Draper disobeyed the county by “rewarding” her classes with a homework-free weekend.
“Man, I was really looking forward to completing that worksheet on parabolas,” said tenth grader Jonathan Baker. “A night spent playing Mario Kart instead of solving math problems? That’s exactly what we call ‘arrest material.’”
During Howard County’s Professional Learning Day on February 5th, a new policy was implemented to mandate teachers to increase the number of home assignments no matter any opposing circumstances. To the Board of Education, it is important that Howard County stays one of the top school districts in the nation. The only way to maintain this standard is increasing class rigor and sending students home with a significant amount of work. As of now, no less than two, double-sided worksheets can be assigned per subject for a night of homework. The consequences of violating the policy are an immediate arrest and one month in the Howard County Department of Corrections.
The new plan was discussed among the Board of Education since the beginning of last year. Ms. Draper was not in attendance when the policy was first introduced, mainly due to her flying gecko’s veterinary appointment.
According to Ms. Draper, the new policy is “stupid”, and she disagrees with the ethics behind it. “The way I see it, weekends should be spent sleeping,” said Ms. Plunkett. Nobody cared enough to address her beliefs since she’ll be in jail for the next month. In the future, she’ll be sure she never misses another professional learning day again. Until she returns, her twelfth-grade student aid will be filling in for her.
Police officer Daniel Cupcake said he was “startled by the student’s report,” which explains why he knocked a strolling freshman over when he came down the hallway on his segway. Cupcake confronted Draper, put her in handcuffs, and ushered her out the classroom.
The other teachers love the new countywide homework policy, despite witnessing their fellow colleague’s arrest first-hand. “We enjoy seeing the students stress and scramble to get all their work done,” said Mr. Pete Clemmens on behalf of the English Department. Besides, Ms. Draper will still be able to stay in touch with her department teachers from the jail Chromebooks.
After the 46-7 vote in favor of the policy at the Board of Education last week, the violation of not assigning homework to students became a third-degree offense for teachers in Howard County. Other counties and states may be on their way to enforcing the same policy if it does well in Howard County.
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