It is important to me to create a homework policy that is consistent, fair, and realistic for students.  Lateness and absence can make this difficult for the teacher, as well as the students.  I never penalize a student for being absent. My policy is simple, I use homework participation as a grade for homework.  I may assign homework up to 4 times a week depending on special projects or events that come up during the school year(MCAS, field trips, etc.)  Each marking period all students start out with a B average. Each assignment brought in on time is worth an 100, a late assignment is worth a 70, and an incomplete or missed assigment is worth a 50, after one week the 50 may drop to a zero.  The day after an assigment we usually go over the answers, discuss, and self-correct the work.  This means every student has the opportunity to learn from homework even if they did not complete it and those that did the work get the credit.  If an assignment is not corrected in class students have a chance to further improve their average with a high score.  Since homework is a weight on the overall grade average it is the students responsibilty to keep those points up.