With the recent success of Tim Tebow in the national spotlight in football a nationwide debate has been created. That is, Should students who are home schooled be allowed to play on public schools sports teams?
I personally am indifferent to the situation. I feel that if a student lives in a district and his/her parents choose to home school their child for whatever reason it is, it should not be held against the child if they wish to play a high school sport. With the growing number of bad options that are being presented to our children; Such as drugs, alcohol and sexual activity. How can we set a limitation on a student’s willingness to participate in after school activities? Also during the course of the presentation we discussed a home schooled child’s social interaction time frame with people of various cultures. Megan stated, “The real world goes beyond interacting with only one type of person, you have to take orders from someone and be able to adapt too many different social settings in a real world work place.” If a child is home schooled, playing on a public school team might be their only option to interact and develop socially on a different level.
Also in jenn’s PowerPoint she discusses the main argument that parents of home schooled children make. Jenn states, “One argument that home-schooled parents make in favor of access to extracurricular offerings is that they pay taxes that finance the public school enterprise. Therefore, they claim, they are entitled to take advantage of the school's offerings to the extent that they and their children are interested in doing so. Paying taxes is not the equivalent of paying tuition for public school.If it were, then people who have no children, or whose children are grown, would not have any obligation or reason to pay. Yet we all paytaxes, regardless of whether we have children and of how many we have.” In Amherst we have a situation that is different from most public school settings, if a child wishes to play a sport they have to pay $450 to participate and that doesn’t guarantee them playing time. So for me if a child is willing to pay to participate and be part of a team, I see no reason to restrain the child from playing. This child is attending school, getting the grades, and staying out of trouble. This is a lot more than we can say for a large number of students. The last thought I wish to make is, our job is about developing all children’s future, are we limited to only developing the children we teach?
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Interesting question, Todd. Looking at our job from this broader perspective certainly alters the premise of the discussion....anyone?
ReplyDeleteAs we talk about homeschool students participating in public school programs, perhaps this though would fit here. Just a thought on "per pupil funding"... I found in an article from "Focus Education" entitled "Once Cross-Purposes to Home-Schoolers, School Districts Seek Growing Accommodation". In this article, it was stated that as per pupil funding is at stake, it may be in the best interest of both the public and home setting, to take certain classes at the local public school and then homeschool for part of the day. This meets the need of the family and the school can still "count" the student as part of its student base on a part-time basis.
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