Home Schoolers playing in HS

[MVM]

There was some talk on another soccer thread about the Home schoolers....Just wanted to put it out there, because this could change the face of some teams.

 

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/jimmyjones/

 

Great News for Home School Students

Posted Friday, March 20, at 3:36 AM

 

 

Imagine if Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow or All-Pro defensive end Jason Taylor had not been allowed to play ball in high school because they were home schooled. They are just two of many that attended school at home and were afforded the opportunity even though their parents opted to home educate.

 

 

 

The following bill set to become law as of July 1, 2009 hits close to home for my family as our daughter Lillie Blair-Jones is entering 9th grade in the fall and is home schooled. Needless to say that we are very excited that she will have the same opportunity to play soccer as her peers!

 

 

 

The Bill appears to ensure that home schooled students will be afforded the opportunity to participate in sports, art, music, drama and other activities sponsored by the school system. Tennessee joins 16 other states in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming in allowing this opportunity. The Bill becomes law as of July 1, 2009.

 

HOUSE BILL 72

[Nashville Panther]

Not a bad idea. Not sure what this means for the Fire. I suppose some of their guys will go and play for their zoned school if it a decent school/ team. Probably couldn't play for private schools or magnets.

 

A concern would be that there are limits on how long some schools can practice during the school day. For instance the coach at a school in metro can't run soccer drills all day while the students are in class. In theory a home-school player could do so. Not sure if there will be increased regulations on teams because of this.

 

I am still opposed to the Home School team playing in the playoffs as there would be unanswerable questions about what district they should be placed in.

[soccerpro1]

Not a bad idea. Not sure what this means for the Fire. I suppose some of their guys will go and play for their zoned school if it a decent school/ team. Probably couldn't play for private schools or magnets.

 

A concern would be that there are limits on how long some schools can practice during the school day. For instance the coach at a school in metro can't run soccer drills all day while the students are in class. In theory a home-school player could do so. Not sure if there will be increased regulations on teams because of this.

 

I am still opposed to the Home School team playing in the playoffs as there would be unanswerable questions about what district they should be placed in.

 

 

The bill is not addresseing teams, just individual home schooled students whose parents have been paying property taxes to support public schools. I'm sure members of our Chattanooga delegation were involved as sponsors and believe this legislation is the result of a long overdue (about 100 years) in who controls the legislature.

[sportsnut624]

I think that homeschool kids should be allowed to play for the teams they are zoned for, but I don't think that all-homeschooler teams should be allowed to compete in HS leagues.

[pride8]

If the schools and coaches are not good enough for the home schoolers during the school day, why would they be good enough to participate with in extracurricular activities? You cannot have the best or worst of both worlds. The kids that participate in TSSAA sports have the social interaction on a daily and hourly basis with their classmates in good and bad times. They deal with peer pressure, resolve conflicts, interact with all strata of society, and learn to get along. It's called growing up. Sometimes that is a rough experience, but it is one that we should and have to go thru if we are going to deal with it in the real world. If you shelter yourself, isolate your problems, and avoid dealing with those that may be considered the undesireables, you have missed out on some truly great rewards. What a reward it is to befriend someone who is not like you. You cannot avoid the problemed and have a chance to help them. There should not be a double standard. Either you take the good with the bad (some schools are better than others) ,or you isolate yourself completely (including our athletic programs). Your property tax situation is the same as an 80 year old widow's who has no children or grandchildren in the local school system. Their tax dollers go toward an educated society which is better for the common good. Not to be a socialist, but if you don't want to be in, stay out. Let's see what hornets this stirs up whether it be at home or at shcool.

[sportsnut624]

If the schools and coaches are not good enough for the home schoolers during the school day, why would they be good enough to participate with in extracurricular activities? You cannot have the best or worst of both worlds. The kids that participate in TSSAA sports have the social interaction on a daily and hourly basis with their classmates in good and bad times. They deal with peer pressure, resolve conflicts, interact with all strata of society, and learn to get along. It's called growing up. Sometimes that is a rough experience, but it is one that we should and have to go thru if we are going to deal with it in the real world. If you shelter yourself, isolate your problems, and avoid dealing with those that may be considered the undesireables, you have missed out on some truly great rewards. What a reward it is to befriend someone who is not like you. You cannot avoid the problemed and have a chance to help them. There should not be a double standard. Either you take the good with the bad (some schools are better than others) ,or you isolate yourself completely (including our athletic programs). Your property tax situation is the same as an 80 year old widow's who has no children or grandchildren in the local school system. Their tax dollers go toward an educated society which is better for the common good. Not to be a socialist, but if you don't want to be in, stay out. Let's see what hornets this stirs up whether it be at home or at shcool.

 

Excellent post! I never thought of it in that sense but I agree with you

[soccerdadwc]

I have no problem with home schooled kids taking part in extracurricular activities. Their parents do pay taxes. They would be taking advantage of part of the things which our taxes go toward. Most of us, thankfully, don't use all tax funded benefits. Soccer recieves very little tax money in our area anyway.

 

If they are allowed to participate correct school assignment should be validated. Of course, we need to do that with current players too. We already have that problem this could make it worse.

[soccertime]

I think the important thing in all of this is to remember the players. I think if a player goes to school or is homeschooled he should have the same opportunity to participate in sports.

 

The homeschool teams should also be able to participate in district, region and state tournaments. Put them in Divsion II. The point is to think about the players.

 

Very few players take it to the next level but we treat high school sports like it is the minor leagues. Sports and playoffs should be something in which all players have a chance to participate if they have the ability. It shouldn't matter if they homeschool or go to traditional school.

[BigG]

If the schools and coaches are not good enough for the home schoolers during the school day, why would they be good enough to participate with in extracurricular activities? You cannot have the best or worst of both worlds. The kids that participate in TSSAA sports have the social interaction on a daily and hourly basis with their classmates in good and bad times. They deal with peer pressure, resolve conflicts, interact with all strata of society, and learn to get along. It's called growing up. Sometimes that is a rough experience, but it is one that we should and have to go thru if we are going to deal with it in the real world. If you shelter yourself, isolate your problems, and avoid dealing with those that may be considered the undesireables, you have missed out on some truly great rewards. What a reward it is to befriend someone who is not like you. You cannot avoid the problemed and have a chance to help them. There should not be a double standard. Either you take the good with the bad (some schools are better than others) ,or you isolate yourself completely (including our athletic programs). Your property tax situation is the same as an 80 year old widow's who has no children or grandchildren in the local school system. Their tax dollers go toward an educated society which is better for the common good. Not to be a socialist, but if you don't want to be in, stay out. Let's see what hornets this stirs up whether it be at home or at shcool.

 

In all fairness, there are a lot of reasons to homeschooling outside of the schools "not being good enough" (freedom to travel, more efficiency in the school day, ability to meet needs that some children require that schools can't meet). There are some kids who fit into the mold you stated above, but there are plenty who have done it for other reasons, that are quite valid. Either way, that's what's not debated here. I respect your opinion, but don't want to get into that debate! We could open up all kinds of cans of worms there! /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

 

What should or needs to be debated, is whether or not they should be allowed to play a TSSAA sanctioned sport. And if so, do they have to fall under the umbrella of the school they are zoned for? What about schools that have a home school program (most home schoolers are associated with a umbrella school). Does that make them students?

 

VERY interesting topic. I look forward to the debates to come.

[fevercoach]

Has this bill passed or is it just up for consideration?

[cnpitbull]

This is an excellent debate topic, MVM, thanks for starting the thread. Pride8, your post was thought provoking a well stated. G, I'll try and stay out of the actual homeschool debate as well, as tempting as it may be in that I am a school teacher as were both of my parents.

 

As it relates to high school athletics, I don't feel like home schooled students should be allowed to compete equally with the students that actually attend the high schools in question as far as playoffs, etc. are concerned. All of the potential problems previously mentioned are very valid, and I feel like would be definite roadblocks in this transitioning process. Do I have a problem with teams such as the Fire competing with organized schools as they do at this time? No, not at all. I do, however, feel that they would have an unfair advantage and would require an absurd amount of regulation. There would just be too much of a gray area when it came to classifications and things to that effect.

 

With regards to individual players competing on the teams for which they are zoned, I also oppose this notion. I think this particular situation involves more of what pride8 referred to in his post. I feel like club ball should be enough competition for those students that have chosen not to attend "regular" school, for whatever reason. I suppose it's almost a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. With that said, I have no problem with parents or children that have chosen the home schooling route. I just don't feel like it's fair to the students that attend a public/private school to have someone come in and be a part of what appears on the surface, to be something they have chosen to exclude themselves from. It's all very philosophical in nature, and I don't believe there will ever be an answer that everyone can agree on.

 

*Sidenote-I went to Carson-Newman with Tim Tebow's brother, Robbie, and played intramural football with him. He was a real nice guy and a heck of an athlete. He told me Tim was a big time recruit his senior year, and I dismissed it as big brother talking up little. I guess I was wrong. /roflolk.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":roflolk:" border="0" alt="roflolk.gif" />

[EastCoUnited]

The use of home school players will be a very important topic for TSSAA to address if the legislation passes. A good example of the potental issues that home schoolers will create for both public and private schools is to look at how High School Swimming in currently operated.

 

High School Swimming is not regulated by TSSAA and therefore home school students can particiate against all schools. In the East Tennessee area Berean Christian School has an excellent high school swim team and is probably one of the smallest high schools, either public or private in our area (less than 100 students in the entire high school). Their program competes against the Knoxville areas biggest schools, Farragut, Bearden, Webb and scores very well against them. In the State Swim Championships this year, Berean's girls team placed 15th, the boys team 24th and and combined team was 14th out over 200 schools. The only other Knoxville area schools that placed higher at State were Bearden, Farragut and Webb.

 

It is just a guess on my part but probably 80% or more on the swimmers on Berean team do not attend Berean High School but are home school students. Berean, just like CAK and other church sponsored schools, register home school students under their school operating charter so these students can abide by other state regulations. If certain rules by TSSAA are not carefully thought out and enacted, you will either see private schools like Berean Christian become dominate soccer teams or teams like CAK, like they need any help, will get even stronger.

 

This issue will become a major point of controvery not just for soccer but all high school sports. Coaches and Athletic Directors had better follow this legislation carefully.