Rep. Sue Peterson (R-13/Sioux Falls) failed Monday to get the House to force every school district to allow homeschoolers to participate in high school extracurriculars with far lower academic eligibility requirements than public school students. This morning she’s in House Appropriations trying to convince her colleagues to make public schools pay for homeschoolers’ choice not to attend.
House Bill 1276 would give homeschool parents a full refund of their school property tax if their districts impose any restriction on their kids’ participation in any SDHSAA-sponsored activity. Under HB 1276, “restrict” would mean “a student must take one or more courses at a public school or is subject to additional requirements not applicable to students enrolled in the school district in order to qualify for participation in a school-sponsored activity.”
I’m listening to the House Appropriations livestream right now waiting for Rep. Peterson to present her bill and for everybody involved in public education to rise in opposition, as they ought. Expect the arguments against the bill to include much of what we heard Monday against Peterson’s HB 1120, plus some new tax-specific arguments:
- Participation in extracurriculars is a privilege, not a right.
- HB 1276 undermines local control, penalizing public school districts for imposing reasonable requirements for participation in its activities.
- Homeschool parents make a choice, and choices have consequences. If they want their children to participate in SDHSAA activities, every public school district in South Dakota offers them the opportunity to do so. If they choose not to take advantage of those opportunities by the rules established by their school districts, they are not entitled to dodge their property taxes.
- HB 1276 moves us dangerously close to making public schools a for-fee service rather than an obligation borne by all citizens. Public schools are necessary to the health of the Republic. All citizens benefit therefrom, whether or not they have children in the system playing football or clarinets or taking classes.
We’ll learn this morning if House Appropriations makes the right choice and kills this anti-public-school bill.
Oh! House Approps got bogged down in the debate over HB 1266 and HB 1300, the failed efforts to divert Medicaid savings to CSPs and nursing homes. HB 1276 is deferred to their next meeting, which is currently listed as tomorrow, 10 a.m. Central.
I’m wondering whether we need to go back to mandatory school attendance, and end homeschooling altogether. When all this started, the homeschool movement wanted nothing to do with anything the public schools had to offer. They just sought the right to teach their children at home. Fine. They got that. Now they want to dictate to the public school how they are to operate, or you want the right to welch on your taxes. That ain’t happening., and if they push it, it’s time to end homeschooling.
I think there are ways to work around the eligibility requirements to give homeschool children the ability to do extra-curricular activities. But the homeschool folks don’t get to have it all their way. The arrogance is really off-putting. I was hoping the homeschool response to the defeat of their bill would have been more measured and reasonable. Rep. Peters is doing her cause no good.
I’m hoping Monsanto or Bayer can come up with a chemical that will disabuse politicians of persistent, noxious bad ideas- once and for all. Put it in red, white and blue wrapper and it will win approval pretty pronto.
Homeschool and private (vouchers) school proponents miss the point: we do not pay taxes to send our children to school; we pay taxes so that our community has a public school for all children. You don’t get to opt our of your community obligation because you choose to send your children to (or do not have children in) non-public options anymore than you get to pay less tax for not using other community funded services. There is no rebate for not driving on certain roads; there is no rebate for not having the fire department or the police called to come to your house . . . Public schools are a commitment that a community makes to its future.
Public, and only public, schools are mentioned in the Bill of Rights. if memory serves.
The Scotus, under Scalia , found a right for private/religious schools to steal public dollars. Now Scalia is dead and we should have had a liberal majority for the first time in decades, but wingnuts would not allow it. I’m guessing with Obama’s pick sitting up there, it would be probable you’d change Scalia’s court decision, and rightly so.
It’s so nice to see all homeschoolers lumped together in everyone’s comments. People homeschool for a variety of reasons and have varying expectations on their school districts. Just because one lady tries to pass a ludicrous bill doesn’t mean all homeschoolers feel this way. I’ve been a public school parent and am currently a homeschooling parent. I have never even thought of not paying my property taxes. The only thing I have asked of my local school is to sign my public school exemption form each year and provide the testing required by the state. One lady trying to pass a horrible bill shouldn’t reflect on everyone.
It’s too bad we don’t hear more homeschool parents testifying against these bad bills. Unfortunately, it’s not just Sue Peterson trying to pass these bills. The problem is much larger. There are a bunch of homeschool legislators and lobbyists who are out to undermine public schools. These are the homeschool voices whom the Legislature is hearing from; that’s why the debate sounds the way it does.
Cory, I agree. My feeling is homeschooling has not been adequately regulated. When I was on the school board we had to vote every year to let homeschool students out of mandatory school attendance. I’m not sure how it works now, but it used to be the parent makes the application, a single piece of paper. There was no annual testing to make sure there was adequate yearly progress being made. We never even saw the application, so I have no idea what was required, let alone what was provided. State law gave us no discretion, even though we knew several applications were from parents who were just letting those kids out of school. It was a ticket to truancy. Now the vast, vast majority, I’m sure, were fine, but we had no information on which to make a decision, yet the state required us to vote to let these kids out.
Why should home schooled children be denied sports? Their parents are paying public school taxes.
This article makes me question whether you care about the Democrat party or children more Cory?
The bottom line is Parents are paying taxes.
Do you disagree?
BTW Cory,
Which districts restrict home school children right now?
As a homeschooling parent who has lived in two different districts I’ve never really felt school districts cared if I home school or not. These schools are underfunded and inadequately staffed one less student didn’t really upset them. The state requires testing for specific years. My son’s last testing year was 8th grade. I never saw the redults because the local district lost the results. Neither the state nor the school was concerned. They just checked the box that we’d complied. I currently live in a small community struggling to fill their sports teams. My son has been approached several times and asked to play. It is not where his interests are so he hasn’t participated. I’d be suprised if other small schools wouldn’t be as open.
Home schooled kids aren’t denied sports. There is usually summer baseball and softball leagues open to everyone.
Imagine public school students crashing religious school classes and thinking. Why do you want everything for free, Jason? What are you, a bleeding heart liberal?
Jason, do not question my commitment to kids. You consistently revert to distracting personal insults instead of focusing on the issue. You show the consistent weakness of your “arguments” with that attitude.
Mike’s right: no child is denied the ability to play sports. But the public schools have every right to set eligibility requirements for every child who wants to participate in school-sponsored extracurricular activities. We set those eligibility requirements because we care about children and want them to have the correct priorities, just as we do at home: Sorry, Johnny, you can’t go outside and play tag with your friends until you clean your room.
As Geri notes, some schools may not be as concerned with holding kids to rigorous academic standards as a condition for playing sports. That’s a problem.
Donald made an earlier point that’s worth remembering: we have every right to require that every child attend school. In recent years, we’ve cut kids slack by offering parents alternatives. We are not obliged to continue offering alternatives that turn into political movements that undermine the integrity of the free and universal public education system that we are obliged to make available to every child.
Notice also that O answered Jason’s question about caring for children even before Jason answered it. As O said, we pay taxes to to selfishly educate our own children but to exercise our civic duty to ensure that every child receives an education. Jason’s philosophy, the philosophy Sue Peterson writes into HB 1276, cares about only a handful of children. O’s philosophy, the philosophy in our state constitution and upheld dedicatedly and exclusively by the public school system, cares about all children.
I want to start out by saying I fully support public school and contacted our Senators to oppose Betsy DeVoss. I also know an underfunded and inadequately staffed public school does not meet the needs of all students. In order for my son to get a quality education I pulled him out of public school. Initially I wanted to ensure he’d learn to read. It was that basic. As we’ve progressed I now view public education as even more inadequate. My child has a sound education in civics and history two areas I find lacking in the public school realm. His papers are required to have fact based resources something that is loosely required for his public school friends. This homeschool education has financially strapped my family but it is a decision my family chose to make. By law the school is required to provide academic resources but I find them lacking so we’ve chosen to buy our own. There will always be people who abuse the system but to toss all homeschoolers into the same group is unfair. There are kids that get passed through public schools and we’re not saying a public education needs to go away or be more regulated. I seriously doubt the number of homeschooling kids who want to play sports for a school amounts to many. Nor do I believe some public school kid won’t get to play because of it. If a kid wants to play, his parents meet the state requirements for homeschooling, and he makes the team why shouldn’t he play? Sue Peterson is ridiculous in her idea that parents shouldn’t have to pay taxes if there child isn’t allowed to play. An educated populous benefits everyone and that is why as a society we contribute to public education. It doesn’t mean it works for everyone though.
Where did I say they shouldn’t pay taxes?
You guys have serious reading comprehension problems.
I don’t care if they try out and aren’t good enough. They should be able to try out because their parents are paying taxes to the school even though their children don’t attend.
Jason, homeschooling parents do still pay property taxes; those taxes do go to help provide the state’s general public education. Here is the rub: the way funding is set up, homeschooling families’ money does not fund a specific school – schools are funded on their per-pupil head count (yes, I know the new formula counts “teachers,” but it is at its root still a student population count). When a homeschooling family asks for services, they ask from a specific school that was not funded to provide that individual opportunity because that student was never part of that school’s head count. That would be my very “in the weeds” answer on the economics of participation.
There are other issues, mostly from the SDHSAA about eligibility and what really constitutes an eligible athlete for any school. Obligations for the student to be passing enough credits hold schools responsible for not letting sports be the only focus for student athletes.
I am all for choice and opportunity as long as those choices and opportunities never degrade the ability of the state to provide a great public school for every student.
All the talk about taxes is missing the point. Half of parents rent their homes and pay no real estate taxes, so paying your taxes is not an important issue in whether or not you get to play sports. I think for most people, it makes sense that you need to be enrolled in a certain school to play on their sports teams. If I go to high school in Mitchell and then expect to be on the wrestling team in Rapid City, people would probably think, “what is that idiot thinking? You play for the team where you go to school.” That common-sense understanding should apply to homeschool kids. Why would you or your parents think you get to join a team made up of students from a school…if you don’t attend that school…? If you think you have the right to do that, you are folish. I’m way past my high school days, but sometimes I think playing basketball again would be fun. If I tried to go join a team at any school now, people would assume I was really dumb – partly because I’m too old, but mostly because I don’t go to school there.
Also, I think Jason misunderstands taxes. So, Jason, I’ll keep it short for you: your parents paying taxes is not a bottom line and doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. Is it your belief that the payment of taxes by your parents entitles you to a spot on any public school sports team in the state, with no restrictions or guidelines? If so, you are not very bright.
Master, there is still a refresh problem. I have to refresh to get caught up with newest posts and comments.
I have a pizza date with a Grandgirlie in an hour and will run full scan when I return.The present sticking point isn’t as bad as a couple days ago.
Ryan,
What is the difference between real estate taxes and property taxes as applied to rental properties.
When my landlord’s property taxes increase my rent increases to pay for the landlord’s increased taxes.
Roger – I could come up with some arbitrary distinctions between paying rent and paying real estate taxes through property ownership, but that’s not my point. My point was not everyone contributes “equally” property-tax-wise, so that being the basis for admission to school sports is inappropriate.
How about these other analogies that help show the same point: a household with one minor child that pays $2,000 per year in real estate taxes does not “contribute” to the “system” the same as a household with seven minor children that also pays $2,000 per year in real estate taxes; or a household that pays rent with some rental assistance program does not “pay” their landlord the “same” amount as the household that pays rent with income from working, despite the fact that the landlord later pays his real estate taxes with his rental proceeds.
I’m suggesting that the paying of taxes (whether real estate taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, or any other taxes) does not entitle you to willy-nilly demand access to any public resource, such as athletic activities offered in public schools. Reasonable qualifications and restrictions should be expected.
First off, why would you expect a child to freely join a school’s extra curriculars if they’re not a student at that school or even the entire district! Like, who are you?
(Funny—I just got done noting on Twitter that “you” can be a confusing pronoun. There are a lot of us here, Kenny; which “you” are you talking to? ;-) )
Mr. Kenny, I am grudznick. I am against all extra-curricular events except football and model rocketry.
Ryan,
I understand taxes very well.
I’m guessing you think businesses pay taxes?
Renters pay property taxes with their rent check. That is a fact.
If you want to talk about equality, then let’s talk about the tax code that is unequal.
Let’s make it equal Ryan. If you get property tax relief for homeschooling, then your child is not allowed to be in sports.
You game for that?
It’s too bad you are putting money before the children, but that is what you are saying.
I already said they don’t have to make the team. They do have a right to try out based on the law that they have to be in school and their parents are paying taxes.
I want to know which districts are not allowing this?
Nobody has answered that yet.
I want to know which districts are not allowing this?
Nobody has answered that yet.
Do you need someone to blow your nose? Look it up on the internet. GOOGLE it!
Cory, your front page isn’t showing your latest news. I thought you went on vacation!
Jenny, this has been a short term problem. Go to Cory’s homepage and press Control. R and refresh buttons. That should get you up to current spot.
“I have a pizza date with a Grandgirlie in an hour”–you go MFI. the best of times! :)
Jason needs a pizza date
Sure was, Leslie. Best time I’ve had in many moons. Pius I had the pleasure of introducing Grandgirlie #2 to her cousin Great Grandgirlie #1 Machaylinn Morgan. Made yesterday even better.
I have two kids in public school. I have one in a parochial high school. I work in a non-denominational private school. I want to say that there is no one-size-fits-all educational system. Different kids are enrolled in different systems for different reasons.
Two points I’d like to make:
1. “In recent years, we’ve cut kids slack by offering parents alternatives.”
My son in the parochial high school is doing way more work than his peers at the local public high school. Our local public high school is on a block schedule. They have four classes a day. Two years ago, my boss said her son had a study hall, a Spanish class, choir and then didn’t have to attend his fourth block because he had obtained enough credits to graduate. She said he had no homework other than whatever the Spanish teacher doled out. My husband spoke to a friend who also has a senior in the public high school. Her daughter has ONE online class. She sleeps until 11:00 in the morning, logs on, does her online stuff and then is done for the day. This isn’t slacking because it’s a schedule supported by the public school? How well is this young lady going to transition into the homework load required by our public universities? We know a very smart young engineering student at the School of Mines. He said he REALLY had to buckle down his freshman year because our public high school did not adequately prepare him for the amount of homework he would have in college. Our public high school gives kids large chunks of the day off if they have earned enough credits. We see 10th graders home for the day at 1:30 in the afternoon. These kids have more opportunities to get into trouble when their parents are at work. When I was in high school, we had to remain at school all day. If we had enough credits to graduate, we took electives. I sought a similar environment for our son. He is a freshman in a private high school. He starts class at 7:45 in the morning and goes straight through until 3:30. He will do this through his senior year. He has nine class periods. He had seven finals to take at the end of the first semester. His friends in public say they never have homework. With the block schedule, the public school teachers teach for the first hour and give the kids the second hour to get their homework done. No teacher is going to lecture to 15-year-olds for two straight hours. At one of the local country K-12 schools, students do not have to take finals if they miss fewer than 3 days of class. A friend whose child attends this country school said her kids were going to have to take the finals because they’d taken a trip out of the country and had missed more than three days. The son of another friend currently attending college said, “Trust me, if they’re going to college, it’s better that they take the finals.” How does not taking finals prepare you for college? Time after time, I see the children of acquaintances dropping out of college because they can’t handle the homework. THIS is the reason my son is enrolled in a private school. Please do not generalize and state that options outside of the public school system are “slacking.”
2. People who are not religious assume that all children are homeschooled because of their religious beliefs.
My friend was really hoping that this bill would pass. She has a child with Cystic Fibrosis. This child also has a passion for basketball. Respiratory illnesses can be deadly for a child with CF. My friend homeschooled her child for three years. Her local public school system (not the same town I live in) has a rule that no one can participate in sports beyond 6th grade unless they are enrolled. They tried participating in a different club sport. Small towns, however, do not offer much in the way of club sports, and it was a long distance to drive to this other sport on a nightly basis. This other sport was not basketball, which is what her daughter really wanted to do. The mother made the agonizing decision to put her child back in public school because being on the basketball team brought joy to her daughter. This mother worries daily about what kinds of illnesses her daughter will bring home from school.
Why am I concerned about this? I have a daughter who is currently in the public school system. For the reasons listed above, she will go to a private high school. She will not be eligible to try out for the public school dance team once she starts at the private school. The amount we pay in property taxes probably covers whatever salary the dance coach receives for doing dance. So, we will pay tuition, we will obediently pay property taxes and our daughter will not be on the dance team because we want her to go to a place that will prepare her for college. We will never get any relief from vouchers, either, because these same parties are determined to fight that to the bitter end. We absolutely cannot get a break.
Why should they get to participate when they do not attend the school?
Why should they get to participate when the cost of them isn’t part of the state aid?
Why should they get to participate when they don’t have to follow the same rules as other participants?
Bottom line, if you want to participate, go to school!!