By Mackie Grady Posted March 20, 2020
The controversy between whether or not homeschoolers should be able to play public school sports continues. Believe it or not, some states don’t allow it. According to the New York Times, twenty-five states now allow homeschoolers to play at public schools. If you choose to be homeschooled, you shouldn’t be allowed to play public school sports.
The majority, if not all, of the people on the team, are already acquaintances so you will for sure already miss that bond experience. Plus, you chose to do your schoolwork at home when you could be social at school and make these bonds. Everyone who plays sports and goes to public school has to balance between schoolwork, practice, extracurricular activities, and social time, so most likely more than a homeschooled student would. You shouldn’t have to pick between academics and athletics but depending on if sports or school work means more to you, only you can make that call and know what’s best for you.
If you are homeschooled, you will have a slight advantage compared to those who go to public school for seven hours a day. You will have more time to practice and potentially get better which then could lead to homeschooled kids taking the roster spots of public kids. Homeschooled kids usually don’t have to go to school as long as public kids do which gives them time to practice their sport a lot more.
Another factor that plays into this is eligibility. In high school, they tend to do grade checks every two weeks to make sure their players are keeping up the good grades. But with homeschooling, most coaches don’t have access to their grades, only their proctor.
Some people may say that homeschooled kids should be able to participate in public school sports because of taxes. Silly reason right? But some may argue that they pay the same taxes as their neighbor who is in public school and they pay taxes to have such public schools. They all pay the same taxes to the state to maintain these public schools, so they argue that homeschooled students should be able to play public school sports. With all of this, I believe that homeschoolers are missing out on a big chunk of high school but that is their choice.
NOTE: This article was written prior to the announcement of the suspension of spring sports.
