Parents push bill allowing home-schoolers to play school sports

BATON ROUGE, La. (RNS) For the third consecutive year, Louisiana home-schooling parents are pushing to amend state law to allow their children to play organized school sports. The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Cameron Henry, now goes to the full House, which likely will pass the measure as it did in 2009. Hurdles are […]

BATON ROUGE, La. (RNS) For the third consecutive year, Louisiana home-schooling parents are pushing to amend state law to allow their children to play organized school sports.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Cameron Henry, now goes to the full House, which likely will pass the measure as it did in 2009. Hurdles are expected in the Senate, which approved Henry’s proposal last year but only after several senators added amendments exempting their local districts, which effectively killed the plan.

By leaving the decision up to local school principles and administrators, the bill could have significant holes — and opposition. Members of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association recently voted 291-5 in opposition.


Henry and other advocates present the bill as an issue of fundamental fairness, saying home-schooling families who pay taxes are unnecessarily denied access to school sports programs.

But Willliam Duplechain, principal of Port Barre High School, said “there are consequences” for parents who pull their children out of public schools.

“If my school’s extracurriculars are good enough for home-schoolers, then my school should be good enough for a home-schooler to attend,” he said.

The LHSAA does not specifically prohibit home school students from competing. But its rules state that a home-school student “shall not be considered a bona-fide student of a school unless he/she is enrolled in the school and his/her grades are transferred and recorded on the student’s official school transcript.”

That is a practical ban, said Lisa Arceri, a home-schooling constituent of Henry’s who is pushing the bill.

Henry’s bill would allow any home school student, without enrolling, to apply at a public school or state-approved non-public school for the right to try out for one of the school’s athletics teams. The applicant would have to prove he or she resides in the school’s zone and prove academic eligibility based on the same grade and testing requirements of the school’s enrolled students.


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