Bill Would Let Home Schooled Children Play Public School Sports

Some legislators want to make Rudd and thousands of other students eligible for sports in public high schools. They’ve stirred a debate about whether welcoming players from charters, private schools and home schools would make it impossible to enforce eligibility requirements designed to prevent cheating.

Two bills at the General Assembly would open interscholastic competition in North Carolina to students who are not enrolled in traditional public schools. The House bill would allow home-schooled children to play at public schools; the Senate bill would also give access to children who attend charter schools and private schools and, in some cases, would allow students at one public school to play sports at another.

“There are 120,000 home school students in the state,” said Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a Warsaw Republican, one of the sponsors of the House bill. “With that many children, we need to see what we can do.”

Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Spruce Pine, co-sponsored the Senate bill with Sen. Jerry Tillman, a Republican from Archdale.

The News & Observer

Duh!  This is just common sense.  The parents of these kids are still paying property taxes for the local public school system, so why shouldn’t their kids be able to play on the sports teams that they are helping to fund?  If they got out of having to pay for the school system that would obviously be different, but you can forget about that ever being the case.

I think this proposed legislation takes things too far, however.  I do not agree that kids who go to private schools should be able to play sports for the public schools.  These kids have a school to play sports for that their parents are also paying for.  It’s not the same as the home schooled kids.  Those opposing this bill do have some reasonable objections. They should keep this simple and limit it just to those being home schooled.  It might ease some of the concerns.

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