Utah
School sports in Carbon County
Utah law specifically allows home schoolers to participate in public school sports, but Carbon County refused to let that keep them from keeping home schoolers off the Carbon High sports teams—until very recently. When Don Jones* decided he wanted to play soccer, he knew that he had a right to try out for the public school team. Utah Administrative Code Rule R277-438-4 says that private and home school students may be eligible for participation in extra-curricular public school activities, provided they are taking courses comparable to traditional school courses in at least as many courses as the local school district requires for participation. The Jones family was unpleasantly surprised to discover that Carbon County had no interest in complying with this law.
HSLDA Attorney Scott Somerville contacted Assistant Superintendent Doug Hintze to discuss Carbon County's position on home schoolers and sports. Mr. Hintze's position was very simple: home schoolers are free to play on the Carbon County team if they stop home schooling and enroll full time in the public school. Mr. Hintze said he would allow home schoolers to sign up for a single semester, play on the team, and then go back to home schooling the next semester, but he would not allow a child to study at home and participate in public school sports.
HSLDA contacted Carol Lear, an attorney at the Utah Department of Education. Ms. Lear reported that the department's position is that home schoolers must be allowed to play, as long as they take the same course load that public school students must take. She noted that the local school district does have the right to monitor the home school academics, to make sure the students was academically eligible to play. It would not be fair to keep a public school student off the team because he was failing algebra, and then allow a home schooler to play without some proof that he was passing algebra. Ms. Lear explained that some public school districts understood the law and obeyed it, but that others kept referring back to old, outdated bylaws from the Utah High School Activities Association, which had kept home schoolers out of school sports until the legislature acted to change the law.
Attorney Lear ended her conversation on a troubling note. "Some school districts let kids play, and others don't," she said. "Sports is really our only inroad into home schooling. This is just about the only way we have of really monitoring what these kids are doing. I can't see why school districts are shutting this door. Our experience has been that home schoolers who play sports wind up coming back to school full time."
Lear contacted Carbon County, and persuaded them to allow home schoolers to play. Assistant Superintendent Hintze has now invited this home schooled student to try out for the team—as long as he proves that he is taking all the courses a public high school student would take, and promises to take tests to prove that he really is learning the material.
— Scott W. Somerville
* Editor's Note: Name changed to protect family's privacy.
