In second grade, they sent home a form that we had to fill out about who (at home) was g oing to be the "homework buddy". They collected the assignments but never graded them. If a kid was consistent about never returning the homework the teacher might have eventually said something to the parent, but it didn't seem to matter much to them. In first grade and second grade I just completely disregarded the homework for DS, claiming he refused to do it because it was too "babyish" (DS's words) and they stopped sending it after a while. So imagine my shock, when in fourth grade, all of a sudden kids were reprimanded if the teachers discovered that a parent had helped a student with an assignment. It was like the kids were high school students. That was the GATE program, not sure what things were like in "regular" fourth grade or whether the "homework buddy" system was done by then.
