One thing wrestlers can't handle: cooties

Same reasoning is why School districts have to bus kids going to private schools within area.

 

So if you own a house but don't have kids, should you be able to book the gym for a family barbecue? Get a key to the pool gate for a really hot day? You're paying for those things, after all.

Extracurricular activities are there to strengthen the bond with classmates, create an extended community and keep kids engaged in the system. A home-schooled child and his family demonstrate that they have no need for any of those things.

I repeat my earlier question: Should a kid who can't make his private school team have rights to take a spot away from a kid on the public school team? Not really much different from the home-schooling question as an argument.

 

Actually, the exact opposite is true. The school and the teachers are already there, they're fixed assets and they'll be there whether little Timmy or Tabitha and 10-or-15 of their home-schooled friends attend school or not. But the family sending three kids to school generates at least $15,000, probably more, in a state per-student contribution to the school district. Little Timmy and Tabitha generate absolutely nothing, but still want the benefits the public school system provides.

If you chose to home-school your child, you're in effect saying you don't like what the public school system has to offer, or you think you can do it better. Fine. But that should also apply to what the school does after 3 p.m. too. You don't attend my school, you can't play on our teams. You decided we weren't good enough for you, now live with the consequences.

 

The risk of being swirlied between classes is significantly lower.

 

Keep in mind that athletics are supposed to be there for the benefit of the kids (and the community at large through development of better citizens), and the parents are the ones who choose to homeschool.

I understand the argument that schools shouldn't have to let homeschool kids participate in activities, but I don't understand why it's a bad thing if the schools choose to do it, other than to take a shot at the parents to the detriment of the kid.

 

As I said, the parents have decided they don't want what the public school system offers, and have chosen not to participate. Fine. That should apply to extra-cirriculars as well. Every decision has repercussions.

 

I'm a little torn on the subject. But I just don't think you should use the school system on an a la carte basis. What would happen if some family said, "We really like your science and english programs. But math? No, we're going to pull our child out of school and teach that at home."

 

Under that logic families that send their kids to private schools wouldn't have to pay either.

 

I suppose that's possible, but nonsensical. If you teach math at home, and do it so much better than the school does, your kid will score well enough to jump to an appropriate math level at school, or out of it entirely. My freshman year of HS a kid who rode my bus got bussed in the afternoon to the local university to take some very high-level math class that our HS obviously was never going to offer.

I still don't get the animosity here. You live in the district, you pay taxes. Your kid wants to play on the local HS sports team, he should be allowed. You can't possibly teach football in a homeschool, you can't play in marching band in a homeschool. All you're doing by preventing his participation is punishing him. Seems petty, and unnecessary.

 

Cassy Herkelman was eliminated with two defeats today.

 

Did the other girl who qualified win a match?

 

Didn't someone on this post that schools receive budgeted amount per kid enrolled (and I seem to remember this from my high school days, that there were 4-5 days that no excused absences would be allowed except for illnesses because it was those days that were averaged to give the state an enrollment number)?

If that's true, then home-schooled kids should not be allowed to take part in the extracurricular activities. They aren't accounted for in the school budget when it comes to receiving state funds.Teams and extracurriculars are meant as supplemental enrichment for students at that school, and since home-schooled kid isn't a student, it's not for him or her.

In my area, the home-school families actually have put together their own basketball and soccer teams, which is a very viable alternative. They play against other home-school teams as well as some regular schools who are trying to fill holes in their schedule.