Senate panel fine-tunes bill to open public school activities to home-schoolers

A proposal to let home-schooled students participate in public school activities is still alive in the Kansas Legislature, but a committee approved several changes to the bill this week.

The Senate Education Committee removed language in Senate Bill 60 that would have allowed home-school students to participate in high school sports when they were 20 years old, according to reports by Scott Rothschild, a communications specialist with the Kansas Association of School Boards.

The committee also amended the bill to require that home-schooled students submit immunization records to participate in sports and other activities. Medical and religious exemptions to immunization – which are available to all students – would remain.

The committee approved a provision that would require a home-schooled student’s educator to attest that the student is in compliance with academic requirements, and one that would require home-schooled students to pay the same fees as other students.

Committee members plan to continue working on the measure next week, Rothschild said.

Supporters of the measure say opening high school sports to home-schooled kids is fair because home-school families pay taxes that finance public schools.

Opponents, including the Kansas State High School Activities Association, the state’s governing body for high school sports, say schools could not guarantee that home-schooled students meet the same academic standards and other criteria that public school kids do. They also worry about the financial impact to school districts because the bulk of a district’s funding is tied to enrollment numbers.

Roughly half of U.S. states have passed laws making home-schooled students eligible to play on high school teams. Such measures often are dubbed “Tim Tebow bills,” named for the Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback who was home-schooled in Florida but was allowed to play football at his local high school.

Mississippi lawmakers killed a similar proposal Thursday, when the Senate in that state voted it down 31-17.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 6:18 PM with the headline "Senate panel fine-tunes bill to open public school activities to home-schoolers."