UT: Rules may change for home-schooled athletes
BevK February 25th, 2006
http://sltrib.com/sports/ci_3533912
A controversial bill making the rounds on Capitol Hill would let home-schooled students participate in high school sports and other extracurricular activities without meeting traditional academic and attendance standards. Instead, parents will decide whether their student should be eligible or not. The people who govern high school sports in Utah say the bill would erode their power and turn prep sports into a free-for-all. The bill’s sponsor, Mark Madsen, R-Lehi, has a home-schooled child himself and says he’s just trying to make the process easier for home-schoolers.
The article says there are 10 homeschooled students per year on average playing high school sports in all Utah.
The educrats think that homeschool parents will keep their kids in sports even when they’re not making academic progress. Parents can’t be trusted. They’ll do anything to make sure Johnny plays ball.
Of course those in favor of making participation easier for homeschooled students say the same thing about the school system.
“It’s amazing what the high school establishment will do to keep a kid eligible,” he said. “And they’re worried about parents who home-school?”
When Madsen introduced the bill last month, the UHSAA’s biggest fear was that parents whose students are struggling academically at public schools would pull them out and begin home-schooling them just to keep them eligible.
Madsen has since amended the bill to state that a public school student who has been declared to be academically ineligible and who subsequently enrolls in a private school or in a home school will lose eligibility until the commencement of the next season.
Excell and Lear said the amendment alleviates their concerns a little, but said it won’t stop parents “who see the writing on the wall” that their student is about to be declared ineligible and withdraw the student before he or she is “declared” ineligible.
