Will opponents of school choice use sports as a weapon against the ability to exercise school choice under new legislation? Most likely, yes. In fact, sports is already being used as a weapon against parents who want to home school their children or send their children to private school.
Conduit for Action has already warned of the danger that school choice legislation may get watered down with restrictions and requirements meant to limit the exercise of school choice and to keep students on the government school reservation. Some of those restrictions to limit school choice may not even be in the law, but in regulations.
Here we give examples of how restrictions have already been used against school choice. These examples are about something as simple as the eligibility of home school and private school students to play school sports.
In 2013, the Republican party became the majority party in both the Senate and House of Representatives, but with only a one vote majority in the House of Representatives. One of the laws passed in 2013 gave home school students the ability to play sports for the school district in which the student lived. But to get the legislation passed, the legislation was heavily amended. The last amendment \vcwas sponsored by Senator Johnny Key, who later became the Secretary of Education under former Governor Asa Hutchinson. Senator Key’s amendment replaced a provision dealing with the eligibility of students who were academically ineligible to play at the time the student transferred to home school, and substituted a provision making home school students ineligible to play sports at the public school for 365 days after the student transferred to home school.
The legislation, Act 1469 of 2013, was a partial victory for home school parents. It gave their children a path to be eligible to play sports for the local school even though the student would have to sit out a year before being eligible. But it is clear Key’s one year restriction on eligibility made it difficult for parents to choose home school as their best option, if their child was a very talented athlete who loved to play, didn’t want to sit out a year, and perhaps even hoped to go to college on a sports scholarship.
Four years later, the legislature passed another bill to help such home school families. Act 582 of 2017 said a home school student is eligible to play sports for a school district outside the district where the student lives if both school districts agree. The 2017 legislation did not have a one year waiting period for playing at another school district. Problem solved. Right? No.
The Arkansas Activities Association then adopted rules to make home school students ineligible to play for the other school district for a year. The effect of which is to continue to make it hard for parents of gifted athletes to choose home school as the best option for a good education.
The Association is not a government entity. Instead, it is made up of member schools, which are primarily public schools. The Association, controlled by public schools, didn’t care that the legislature didn’t include a period of ineligibility before a home school student could play for another school district, and adopted the one-year ineligibility rule which punishes home school families.
The Arkansas Activities Association didn’t stop there. The association also adopted a rule to prevent a home school student who transfers to a private school from playing for one year. But this provision is consistent with the Association’s discrimination against students who transfer to private schools.
The Association rules prohibit most students who transfer to a private school after the 7th grade from playing sports for the private school for period of one year. The Association even prohibits a private school student from ever playing for the private school if the student does not live with twenty-five miles of the private school.
The association seems to want to punish families who exercise school choice by enrolling their children in home school or a private school. (Remember most members of the association are public schools.)
(To see the Association Rules on home school students use this link and then go to pages 37 and 38. For the rules on transfers to private schools go to page 35)
If Arkansas is going to be known as a pro-school choice state, unfair restrictions must be avoided, even in sports.
One place to begin is for the legislature to remove the anti-school choice provision in the law which makes home school students ineligible to play for the school district where the student lives for a period of one year.[i] Second, the Arkansas Athletic Association must repeal its anti-home school and private school rules. Plus, our elected officials need to take a closer look at the association’s operations to make sure the association is never again in a position to use its rules as a weapon against school choice.
In the school choice debate, should it be about a public school coach’s desire to stay on top, or about providing the best school options for our children?
[i] A.C.A. 8-15-509 (h) says:
(h) A student who withdraws from an Arkansas Activities Association member school to be home-schooled shall not participate in an interscholastic activity in the resident school district for a minimum of three hundred sixty-five (365) days after the student withdraws from the member school.
