SPRINGDALE — Questions remain for athletes, parents and administrators regarding a new rule allowing home-schooled children to participate in public school, extracurricular activities.
“There are a lot of unknown factors at this point,” said Mark Holderbaum, athletic director for Rogers schools. “We have no idea how many kids will take advantage of this, or exactly how it will be implemented.”
At A Glance
Tim Tebow Rule
The Arkansas Activities Association approved new rules for home-schooled students to participate in public school extracurricular activities. The new rule takes effect for the 2013-14 school year:
Home-schooled students can participate in interscholastic activities in their assigned district if they can provide documentation the parent’s domicile is in that district, they’ve met AAA eligibility guidelines for the appropriate grade level and have been cleared by the district superintendent.
Source: Arkansas Activities Association
The rule, approved last week by the Arkansas Activities Association, requires home-schoolers to attend one class a day at the public school, meet standard eligibility requirements, get approval from the district superintendent and play for the school appropriate to where their parents live.
“Obviously, there are some things that need to be ironed out, but this is a welcome change,” said Sarah Roach of Springdale.
Roach home schools her two younger boys, both of whom play baseball and basketball in independent leagues.
“We still need to know some things about what the enrollment standard means,” she said, “how the home school tests affect participation and eligibility and whether joining a public school baseball team affects their ability to play basketball in other leagues.”
The rule doesn’t take effect until fall 2013, giving all parties time to sort out some of the answers. Some of those answers, however, need to come sooner, Holderbaum said.
“For a lot of fall activities, preliminary tryouts are held the preceding spring, before the end of the school year,” Holderbaum said. “The rosters for things like football, cheerleading and band are fairly well established before the July 1 deadline for home-schoolers to file their intent to participate.”
Initially, incoming home-schoolers will probably be handled similar to transfer students, he said.
The rule, nicknamed the Tim Tebow Rule after the New York Jets quarterback who was home schooled through high school, replaces older rules that were more restrictive.
“We had really thought about moving from Arkansas to somewhere where the rules were easier,” said Roach, whose two older children didn’t play in public-school leagues. “Even five weeks ago, we never thought they’d change the rules.”
Andrew Roach will be a freshman this year. Under the new rules, he might be able to play baseball at Springdale High School beginning his sophomore year.
“I still don’t know if he’d get four years of eligibility, or just three,” Sarah Roach said. “His questions are even simpler. The rule says he has to attend one class a day. I want to know which classes qualify. He’s worried that he might be ineligible if he gets sick and misses one of those days of class.”