Home-schooling and High School Sports

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Quarterback for the University of Florida, Tim Tebow, is once again serving as a source of inspiration for individuals off the football field, this time a Kentucky legislator – Senator Jack Westwood, (R) – Crescent Springs – who recently introduced a controversial bill in the state’s General Assembly that would allow home-schooled students in Kentucky to play sports for public high schools.

Westwood tells the website Kentucky.com that he is “optimistic” that his legislation, which draws on a similar law passed in the state of Florida that allowed Tebow to play football at Allen D. Neese High School in St. John’s County, will be passed and provide over 12000 students home-schooled in the state of Kentucky an opportunity to play high school sports.

Some have voiced concern that considering Kentucky’s floundering economy, the bill could very easily get lost amongst an array of more pressing issues being brought before the General Assembly; Westwood, however, notes, “I don’t see a downside” to the timing of the legislation and feels it will ultimately yield positive results.

Kentucky.com writes that as of 2009, some twenty-four states have laws on the books which allow home-schooled students access to public school athletics. The Kentucky High School Athletics Association, however, has thus far rejected requests for participation by home-school students in the state’s public high school sports programs, forwarding the belief, as Rodney Woods, head coach for Wayne County High School postulates in his own words, “I don’t think you get the full benefit of being on a team when the only time you see your teammates is when you show up for practice.”

The arguments offered by those opposed to Westwood’s bill are essentially two-fold. First, there are concerns about the integrity of the “academic checks and balances” encountered by those who home school; how is it possible, in other words, that students taught at home can be held to the same stringent performance standards as student-athletes attending classes at any number of the state’s public schools? Second, a voice has be given to the fear that allowing the home-schooled the opportunity to play sports in public schools could give rise to the use of illegal recruiting procedures by high school coaches seeking talented student-athletes who reside outside the district in which that particular program plays. Westwood has attempted to curb the anxiety accompanying such thought by including a provision in his bill which would prevent such practices from taking place; yet how such restrictions in the recruiting process would be adequately policed still remains to be seen and remains a prominent point of contention.

Proponents of Westwood’s legislation wholeheartedly disagree with their opposition, countering that it is completely unfair for parents of home-schooled students to be expected to pay taxes which support public school sports programs, yet at the same time accept the tenets of a system which suggests that home-schooled children should be prohibited from participating in these same types of activities. Backers too point out that Kentucky law currently leaves the decision on whether home-schooled kids can participate in extracurricular activities outside of sports to be left up to individual school districts. Why that has yet to be extended to high school athletics is a question which as of now remains unanswered.

Though not speaking directly to the battle being waged in the state of Kentucky, members of the Tebow family, including Tim, have advocated allowing students participating in home-schooling be provided the chance to play sports in public schools. The state of Alabama, the article notes, joins Kentucky in attempting to pass legislation that would allow just such a scenario to take place, but is sadly enough revisiting such consideration for the third-straight time.