For thousands of homeschooled students in Mississippi, participating in extracurricular activities isn’t as simple as signing up for their local school’s team. Unlike many other states, Mississippi does not allow homeschooled students to join public school athletic programs or extracurricular clubs, leaving families to seek out expensive private leagues-or forgo these opportunities altogether.
House Bill 1617, also known as the Tim Tebow Act, aimed to change that by granting homeschool students access to public school sports and activities. The bill, named after former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, who was homeschooled but played public school football under a similar Florida law, would have created more inclusive opportunities for non-traditional students. However, the bill failed to advance in the Mississippi Legislature Tuesday, ending its chances of becoming law this session.
Despite the bill’s failure, the debate over homeschool participation in public school activities remains relevant. The decision to homeschool their children is growing more popular in the United States every year among parents, and for a myriad of reasons. Many families say they have concerns about the public school environment as a key reason for homeschooling their children. In fact, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 83% of homeschooling parents worry about issues such as peer pressure, safety concerns like drugs, violence, and bullying, and the fast-paced nature of traditional schools.
Katie Boyle, an environmental educator and leader of the local children’s program Wonder Walks, says her own experiences in public school influenced her decision to homeschool her children. Growing up in New York City, she felt that her school’s fast-paced and rigid structure didn’t always accommodate students’ individual circumstances.
“For me, everything was going great [at school.] I loved learning, I loved school, I loved reading,” said Boyle. “But then in seventh grade, my dad got sick with cancer and then he died. With school, I just needed a minute, you know? I needed a second to figure out very real things in my world, the very big things that I was going through, and unfortunately school can’t wait. There’s no individualized care.”
For Boyle, she wanted to make sure her kids had space to balance their personal and school lives. She didn’t want her children to go through what she did, and wanted to make sure they always had the space and time to breathe and catch up in different circumstances.
Despite the disadvantages that public schools have, many homeschool parents still recognize the value of organized sports and activities. As of now, 33 states allow homeschooled children to participate in public school activities. For everyone else, students not enrolled in public or private schools must rely on private programs that have different clubs and teams to partake in. However, private programs are simply too expensive and too time-consuming for many families, making access to public school activities a more practical and affordable option.
“My oldest son is in [public] school now because he wanted to play basketball,” said Boyles. “That was ultimately the decision of why we decided to put him in school-so he could participate in sports. There are these club teams…where you pretty much have to pick one sport and you have to do club teams all year. But it’s too expensive and it’s every weekend, and you have to go to places like Birmingham. I can’t go on weekends because I work, but I also don’t want to spend the weekend in Birmingham for my kid to play basketball for a thousand dollars a week. There are private options, but they’re unreasonable to me.”
In addition to being a more affordable option, homeschooled students playing in public school sports gives them the opportunity to socialize with kids their own age without having to give up being homeschooled.
Alexus Bailey, a freshman Biological Sciences major, says this was the biggest reason why being homeschooled was not the best option for her. She was homeschooled for a year when she was 16, which is when proper socialization is crucial.
“Educationally wise, homeschooling was a good option,” said Bailey. “However, not being in clubs was lonely.”
As of now, Mississippi homeschool students still cannot play on public school sports teams or participate in clubs or activities if they are not enrolled in public school. But many people still think that similar legislation to the Tim Tebow Act would be beneficial for so many Mississippian children and their families.
Alexis Maples, a Criminal Justice major from Raleigh, North Carolina, was homeschooled from kindergarten to eighth grade, and was fortunate enough to rely on Parks and Recreation programs to play the sports she loved. Maples says she thinks a similar act should be passed in the future to help children benefit from everything public school extracurriculars have to offer, and that more awareness should be brought to it to help get the word out and inform more people.
“I think there should be more campaigning around it, educating people on what [the act] entails, encouraging them to lobby for it,” said Maples. “Based on my observations through work and life, there’s not a lot of opportunities for sports or socializing unless a kid goes to a public school. That act is definitely something homeschool students could benefit from.”
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