How much is too much homework? How much homework should each teacher assign? It's been hard in the past to homeschool during the day knowing what is going on and then to homeschool at night with blinders. I say that because I don't know what's going on at school and kids have questions. What does it mean by "Do you think the experiment is fair? Support your answer with 2 citations." How do you cite your work? Is it the same for each class? Is it standard notations? The answer is no to both. And what does "fair" mean? Does it mean equal or accurate or without error? I can't  answer that? I don't know. Then there are essays. Right now she's writting a 12 paragraph essay on an imaginary trip from Washington to Texas and all the sites she's seeing along the way. Can it be outlandish? I would say yes, it is an imaginary trip, but is that what the teacher wants?  I don't know. Then there are the "missing" assignments. I put missing in there because on the site they are listed as missing but the email from the teacher said they aren't missing and they will be entered the following week. That was 2 weeks ago. So what does that tell me? I don't know. It seems to be a standard answer. I am educated but have little contact with teachers. She turned in a form saying that we will not be attending the math night at the middle school. It was given a zero.  We can't, we have an open house at the high school and soccer practice and a soccer game.  How many places can I be at? I have to say, middle school was hard when I was there as a student.  It hasn't changed. I talked to another mother in the mid-west and she has a similar experience with her kids and middle school.  It must be middle school itself.  How do I take that? What can I do?