Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school teams?

@Setanta,

my daughter is the speller not me....and I don't intend to start now - I prefer david's method of spelling.

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@Linkat,

I see . . . so you're opposed to communication?

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@boomerang,

yeah - I think that comment best reflects what is trying to be accomplished by school sports.

Quote:

I think that school sports teams are meant to reflect the best effort that a particular school can come up with against the competition of other local schools. Teams are meant to reflect the membership of the school community, not serve some other community

I'd imagine the big concern is more what is actually legal and what legally does a public school need to do for homeschooled children, if anything. This could also be a local/state type of decision.

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@Setanta,

no - I'm communicating you knew what I was saying - I've had a full conversation with a woman in Germany while visiting with knowing few German words and she knowing few English words....communication is much more than spelling and words.

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@Linkat,

Maybe I'm confused....

What I was saying is that if someone wants to privately fun a scholarship for homeschooled kids I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with that. And, if someone wants to extend the scholarship availability to homeschooled kids I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with that.

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@Linkat,

You really are a humorless woman . . .

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I think it's kind of great if a school can be a true community establishment -- that the people living near the school have an investment in it even if they don't have a child attending the school.

this could have many interesting implications

1) I could, as a local taxpayer, insist that the school bring in better players from other schools (either inside or outside of the catchment area) so that my property value will go up

2) I could, as a local taxpayer, insist that the school not allow players from outside of the school to participate on school teams

3) I could, as a local taxpayer, organize my neighbours in a campaign to have the school only feature players from our block

and many many many other horrible permutations and combinations.

I am very much in agreement with msolga's comments

Quote:

I think that school sports teams are meant to reflect the best effort that a particular school can come up with against the competition of other local schools.

Teams are meant to reflect the membership of the school community, not serve some other community (or other) purpose.

When anyone can become a member of a school team , then what's to stop schools from recruiting known performers from outside their own school community to be seen as "successful"?

That is not what sport in schools is meant to be about.

The aim surely, is to bring out the best in the students they work with, to bring out the the best in those students working cooperatively together

.

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@ehBeth,

Or it could lead to things like our community clean up day where all the neighborhood gardeners show up at school and get the grounds ready for opening day.

Our our neighborhood dog association which helps maintain the school fields in exchange for getting to run our dogs there when school isn't in session.

Or the older people in the neighborhood who volunteer their time to help out in classrooms.

I think community involvement in schools is pretty important.

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@boomerang,

Sorry didn't mean that way - I was agreeing with your comments and just explaining further why.

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@Setanta,

nah I just have a dry humor.

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@boomerang,

I think there is a difference between community involvement in/support of schools and community interference with school activities.

~~~

The particular question that started the thread was about who gets to play on teams, not who cleans the yard or volunteers in the classroom.

As noted, I agree with msolga's comment that school teams are for students of a particular school.

It may have to do with coming from outside of the American culture, but I don't think that competition shouldn't be what it's all about. Again, agreement here with msolga's point about what I'd call school spirit/camaraderie.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

As noted, I agree with msolga's comment that school teams are for students of a particular school.

I do, too, insofar as students at other schools are concerned. What I am suggesting is that the children in the school neighbourhood that are being homeschooled might get a shot at being on the team - maybe I should qualify that and add 'if there are players needed'.

I don't really understand why there aren't more than one team of each sport. Why not have two or three softball teams, basketball teams, etc? Then more kids would get to play. You would get drafted to Team B, and hope you work your way up to Team A, just like professional players.

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@Mame,

They kind of do, with JV and varsity. (In that case, JV is the "B" team and varsity is the "A" team.)

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Quote:

When anyone can become a member of a school team , then what's to stop schools from recruiting known performers from outside their own school community to be seen as "successful"?

Ringers! Private schools do it all the time (probably some public schools, too, when they can get away with it). The private school my brother went to had a high-achieving basketball team. They routinely went around recruiting at the public schools, offering scholarships to the star athletes.

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@Mame,

This is something i've long thought would be a good idea. The problem would be funding. However, schools pour a lot of money into the main teams, the Varsity and the Junior Varsity. Having say, A, B & C leagues would give everyone a chance to compete. We bought our own gloves for baseball, and often our own bats, if we had a preference. One could dispense with uniforms, cheerleaders and fancy displays. We all managed to play baseball all summer (when we weren't working) without uniforms, cheerleaders and fancy displays.

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@sozobe,

Yes, but that's for the older kids - universities and college, right? I'm talking about grade school aged kids.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

I don't really understand why there aren't more than one team of each sport.

locally, it's because there's barely enough money for one team in school budgets

I recall there being multiple teams in a few sports (volleyball was the big one at our school) when I was in high school, but as funding was chipped away at, a lot of the extracurriculars that involve real $'s have disappeared

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@Mame,

Here, none of the schools have sports teams until high school, per se.

Mo plays on his school's basketball team but it's really through the parks and recreation department. A coach can approach a school about putting together a team made up of students from that school and use the school facilities for practice but it isn't really affiliated with the school at all.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Here, none of the schools have sports teams until high school, per se.

Right, that was my distinction too.

They start with school teams in seventh grade here, I think. There are JV and varsity teams throughout.

Before that it's all local, non-school teams.

That's what I mentioned before (I think? I may have typed that and then not submitted, was busy), we have some private school kids on our local softball team but it's mostly kids from our school. No homeschoolers that I know of.

No problem with the private school kids on our team though. They tend to be a little different culturally (more intense and competitive, more money, more private coaching -- well, private coaching at all, I don't think any of the other kids have that -- and the best ones play on a club team too, so two teams at once) but the kids all get along fine.

Basketball and soccer are open to everyone I think but it happens to all be kids from the same school.

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@ehBeth,

Size of the school and options for competition probably have something to do with it, too.

I don't think our school could field more than two teams -- it was really hard to come up with enough girls for the varsity basketball team this year, most of 'em do double duty on the JV team. (And our record was still 5-10 or something.)

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Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school teams?

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