In Clifton, summers are not all fun and games. Starting with some of our youngest learners in elementary school, our public school students are assigned summer homework. In most grades, this work counts as your child's first grades of the new school year. 

Summer homework may be beneficial to some children. Some children may enjoy the structure and the continuity. It is wonderful that our teachers provide them with the opportunity to keep their skills practiced during the summer break, if that's what they want to do.

For many families, however, these summer assignments mean interrupted vacation time, tears and fighting at home, interference with work schedules for older teens, and more of the same stress that most children and teens are looking to escape in the summer months.

Summer assignments should be optional for families who want to take them on, and should not result in penalties for the children whose families want their children to have a homework-free summer. The schools dictate much of how our children's time is spent from September through the end of June. We are asking that for two months out of the year, we parents get to decide how our family time will be spent.

*NOTE: Renassiance Learning/Accelerated Reader recommends that children take their reading comprehension quiz within 24 hours of completing their book. Clifton Public Schools are asking your child to read all summer and then take a quiz, which may count as a test grade, when they return in September. This is not educationally sound practice.