The Fairfax County Democrat said parents \u201cknew the ground rules when you opted to\u00a0home school\u00a0your kids\u201d and made that choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Aaaaaaand, that\u2019s why I\u2019m angry.<\/p>\n
Look, we\u2019re talking about the kids here. Sure, the parents chose to homeschool, but the kids don\u2019t usually have a choice in the matter<\/em>. This is sort of like telling poor parents \u201cyou knew what you were getting into when you decided to have kids even though you\u2019re poor, so no, you don\u2019t get government assistance.\u201d I mean, really?<\/em>\u00a0Kids born to poor kids deserve the same chance as everyone else, regardless of what you think of their parents\u2019 choices.<\/p>\nI didn\u2019t have any choice in being homeschooled, which I was, from kindergarten through high school. I lived in one of the 21 states that don\u2019t let kids participate in public school sports. My parents decided they wanted my brothers to do sports, so they looked around for options. For a while they were driving three hours, round trip, to participate in a homeschool track team. This was just too much, so they ended up finding a public high school in the area that had one sport listed as a \u201cclub\u201d rather than as a \u201cteam,\u201d a loophole that allowed them to participate. One of my brothers had dreamed for years of a career as a military officer, and if it weren\u2019t for that loophole that door would probably have been shut to him.<\/p>\n
These kids are real people. They\u2019re not some abstraction. They shouldn\u2019t have to suffer being shut out of opportunities to do sports just because their parents chose to homeschool them. Homeschooled kids, especially those homeschooled for religious reasons, deserve every chance for socialization and interaction with public schooled kids that they can get.<\/p>\n
Perhaps what upset me the most was the spiteful attitude of some of the commenters at Joe. My. God. There was this:<\/p>\n
I agree with them. If you want to play football, go to a real school, pass your classes and compete with other students to be there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this:<\/p>\n
\nWhen one home-school advocate complained about not having access to public school sports paid for by his taxes, Sen. Richard Saslaw retorted, \u201cYou pay taxes that also go to purchase an F-22 fighter, that doesn\u2019t mean you get to fly it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yup. And the taxes paid by many of us who don\u2019t have children still go to support schools. That\u2019s the way a society works.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this:<\/p>\n
The same people who complain about not having access to public school sports due to THEIR choice to home school their kids, knowing all too well the ground rules of said choice, have no problem to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, arguing that gay people have \u201ca choice\u201d to marry someone of the opposite sex and that marriage equality is a \u201cspecial right\u201d claimed by \u201cspecial interest groups\u201d. Typical Christian double standard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this:<\/p>\n
The benefits of public schools, are also about social integration and teaching children how to get along with each other. However, half in and half out, can\u2019t cut it. If there aren\u2019t any AYSO or off campus sports or other programs in which the kid can get some training or experience, then form one?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this:<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve opt out of the system, they can\u2019t just selectively opt-in. Moreover, sports programs often have fees and are vulnerable to budget cuts (although music, art, school nurses and school psychologists usually get the heave-ho sooner).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And perhaps this hurt most because these are people who are supposed to be on \u201cmy team.\u201d Suddenly I feel like I\u2019m twelve years old again, jumpers and pigtails and all, and they\u2019re pointing and laughing. They don\u2019t care about me. They\u2019re out to spite my parents, and it doesn\u2019t matter if I get caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n
And so, I am angry<\/em>.<\/p>\nTo those who suggest that homeschoolers go elsewhere for sports, it\u2019s not that simple. There are plenty of community leagues for younger kids, but those things generally phase out by the time kids are high school age because of the assumption that kids will participate in sports at their schools. Sure, homeschoolers could start their own teams, but that would mean having a parent with the ability to coach and someone willing to take on the responsibility of organizing them. And besides that, who would they play? Further, you\u2019d have to have a huge population of homeschooled students to have enough to form actual teams. I lived in an area with a lot of homeschoolers, and still we didn\u2019t have our own teams.<\/p>\n
With all of that out of the way, I have to ask. Why can\u2019t homeschooled kids opt in for some aspects of the public school system? Why do we hold up the fiction that it has to be all or nothing?<\/p>\n
Money. Yes, there is the money issue. I get it, I really do, but you know what? I really resent the lawmaker\u2019s quip about F-22s, and you know why? Because there are plenty of good reasons to keep a civilian from flying an F-22, but there are absolutely zero good reasons to keep a homeschooled student from playing sports at her local public school. Homeschool parents pay the same amount in property taxes as everyone else, and that tax money is earmarked for educating children<\/em>. Why refuse to to let any of that money contribute to the education of homeschooled students, especially when they\u2019re simply asking to opt into programs already open to public schooled students?<\/p>\nI do understand the issue on an individual school level, though. While the overall money available for education does not change when a student drops out of the public schools to be homeschooled, the amount of money a given school receives is based on the number of pupils the school has. So even though homeschool parents pay property taxes like everyone else, a given school has not been given funding to education the homeschool students in the area. But why not let the schools also receive funding based on what services homeschooled students make use of? Or, why not let homeschooled parents enroll their children in public school sports for a fee to cover the extra expense?<\/p>\n
Finally, some have pointed out that kids are required to keep their grades up in order to play sports. Then why not require homeschooled students to pass some sort of test in order to participate in sports? The goal of requiring students to keep their grades up, as I understand it, is to ensure that students are not focusing on sports at the expense of academics. I don\u2019t see why it\u2019s not possible to ensure this with homeschooled kids as well.<\/p>\n
In the end, I simply see no good reason not<\/em> to let homeschooled students participate in public school sports, and plenty of really good reasons to<\/em> let them. And the fact that 29 states do<\/em> allow homeschooled students to participate in public school sports tells me that it can be done.<\/p>\nSo fine! Vote against letting homeschooled kids participate in public school sports! Pat yourselves on the back for pulling one over on those crazy homeschoolers! Feel all self righteous why don\u2019t you! But while you do that, I\u2019ll be the one thinking of the victims caught in the crossfire, the freckled and pigtailed homeschooled children who lack any say in the matter.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why the refusal to let homeschooled students participate in public school sports? And why is this cheered by people who are supposed to be on my team<\/i>? I have to be honest, I’m angry.<\/i> We’re talking about the kids here. Sure, the parents chose to homeschool, but the kids don’t usually have a choice in the matter. 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