Mountain Home student-athletes sometimes spend more than eight hours on a bus traveling to a game. School district officials want state lawmakers to help stop the long commute.
“They get in at [2 a.m.] and they’re expected to be at school at 7:52 [a.m.],” Mountain Home Athletic Director Janet Wood said. “Our concern is are they mentallyready to face the day with very little sleep and very little recovery time?”
District officials testified before the House and Senate Education Committees on Monday for a study on limiting how far students can travel for athletics. The committees are expected to revisit the issue before the 2014 fiscal session.
“It has nothing to do with competition,” Wood said. “We’re just trying to keep ourkids in class.”
The committee also discussed a new law that allows home-schooled children to participate in some public school extracurricular activities.
Mountain Home is in north-central Arkansas near the Missouri border in Baxter County. Mountain Home plays in the 7A/6A-East Conference with Cabot, Jonesboro, Little Rock Central,North Little Rock, Marion, Searcy and West Memphis.
Superintendent Lonnie Myers told the committee the district’s longest trip is 374 miles from Mountain Home to West Memphis and back. He said with bathroom breaks, the trip takes seven to eight hours.
He said the shortest round trip is 240 miles to Searcy, which takes four to five hours.
“It’s not just the time on the bus, it’s the time they get home, it’s the loss of rest and preparation for the academic classes the next day,” Myers said.
Other officials said those time demands increase as students participate in multiple sports or if the team qualifies for a tournament.
“We have a terribly unique situation in terms of travel that will take a terribly unique solution,” Myers said.
Wood said the district has worked to limit travel by scheduling two games on the same day, holding events on Saturdays or meeting at a neutral site between schools to play games.
Myers said the district is asking legislators for help limiting how far students can travel on school days because it ran out of options with the Arkansas Activities Association board. The 19-member board is made up of administrators from AAA-member schools.
“Our voice never seems to be desired, never seems to be heard,” Myers said.
Wood said the board rejected attempts to place more teams in each conference or to combine the 48 6A and 5Aschools into one classification, both of which would create opportunities to schedule games against closer teams. She said other schools rejected the ideas because of the potential effects on competition and the lost revenue for some schools from holding fewer games.
Legislation proposed by Senate Education Committee Chairman Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, during the 2013 session also failed. It would have capped how far student-athletes can travel during the school day to 250 miles round trip.
Arkansas Activities Association Executive Director Lance Taylor was in the committee meeting but didn’t speak. The chairman said Taylor would be asked to speak at another time. Taylor did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Also Monday, committee members heard concerns about the application of a new law allowing home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at public schools. The law goes into effect in mid-August.
Act 1469 of 2013 requires traditional public schools to offer home-school students in middle and high school grades the same opportunities to participate in interscholastic activities as the schools provide to traditional-school students - starting with the 2013-14 school year. The act also authorizes the districts to require home-school students to take one class on campus - either a class affiliated with the chosen activity or, if there is no affiliated class, an unrelated course.
The activities available to home-school students include not only athletics, but also band, choir, debate and anything else governed by the Arkansas Activities Association.
Family Council Executive Director Jerry Cox, who pushed for the law, told the committee that some districts are telling home-school students they have to enroll in the district or take multiple classes. Cox said no one seems to be in charge of making sure districts follow the new law.
The law’s sponsor Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, said he assumed that the state Department of Education would create rules and regulations to help districts interpret the law.
Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell told the committee that while the department can craft rules and regulations, it has worked to limit its oversight to academics and funding and to leave governing who is eligible to participate in activities to the Arkansas Activities Association. He said he is leery of blurring the lines between the department and the association.
“This is about a student being eligible to participate in an extracurricular activity. I don’t think the [association] or the schools want us getting into eligibility issues,” Kimbrell said.
He said the department has been working on a nonbinding recommendation to districts about what the law says. That information will be sent to districts by the end of the week, he said.
Lawmakers pushed for the department to draft official rules anyway.
“There comes a time that we do need leadership to say, ‘These are the rules,’” Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, said. “Everyone needs to be on the same playing field.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/23/2013