To participate in extracurricular activities or not? That is the question!

  

                                                                 

            Why is it that Virginia does not allow home-schooled children to play in extracurricular activities in the public school system? I think about this a lot being I do home-school and I have children who would love to be part of certain activities. I want them to have the same opportunities as far as scholarships and such. This is my husband teaching our oldest child Bailey guitar lessons in the picture above. I must say we are lucky to have a very talented guitar player in our family. I know our girls are very happy with everything they do at home.

 Gracie my middle child loves to play soccer with her Daddy as well! We are thinking about putting her in a home-schooling soccer group. Bailey loves the guitar lessons but she loves to sing, that is her passion! So voice lessons seem like an option. I do wonder if we decided to put them in these extracurricular activities and athletics, would it be allowed one day to actually look into public schooling (because or scholarships and such)for the option. Home-schooled children do get tested during and at the end of each school year; we do hold them back or move them forward depending on their grades. Tell me what’s so different that this is not allowed in VA? Is it because kids are not interacting with the public school kids as much during their school day? They do interact with home-schooled kids during the day along with all types of adults. Or is it the parents who send their kids to public schools that actually think home-schooling parents let their kids get by with anything including bad grades and think we let our kids play sports anyway despite their grades? Come on now that’s just ridiculous! We take our children’s education very serious just like most parents in the public school system. Our kids talk, walk, and even argue with their siblings just like public school educated kids do. They have homework, they pick out back-packs at the first of the year and they will even have a prom to attend in their last years of school. Can’t forget they even have field trips throughout the year too! There is no difference, just the building and the size of the classroom when it comes to education. We do add our values and beliefs in our daily lessons, because the school system is slowly taken these things out. It is very important to us as a family to be able to instill these things in our children’s lives. Families who choose to home-school pay their taxes to support public school systems just like everyone else (Williamson K. D., 2012).So why is it not ok for home-schooled kids to be part of public school system sports again?

  In this picture above why do you think Bailey is in the Tim Tebow pose? Well it’s simple in her eyes she became excited when she learned he was homeschooled too! In case you did not know Tim Tebow who is currently the quarterback for the New York jets was the quarterback from the Denver Bronco’s has fought for the rights of homeschoolers on top of being a major athlete. The law known as the “Tim Tebow Law” and no it’s not where you start each day “Tebowing”. It’s a law where homeschooled kids have the right to be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities in a public school system, including athletics.

Tim Tebow was the first homeschooled athlete to win the Heisman trophy in 2007. He continues to fight for the rights of homeschooled children to be able to participate in extracurricular activities in a public school establishment. Children that are home-schooled have to follow their counties’ guidelines on what curriculums they use and their parents have to have their kids tested at the end of each year, just like the public school system. One day I hope this law will pass in Virginia. I know our current governor Bob McDonnell backed the Tebow law. It did not pass but hey it’s baby steps. At least people do understand the importance of equal rights with tax payers!

              An article I recently read summed up how I feel to someone who chooses to not home-school their children. Homeschooling is often looked at as a threat to society just because they decide to instruct their children at home (Williamson K. D., 2012). This is how I feel when talking to other mothers.  They do their best but I think it seems like a threat to them that I am at home with my kids not having to work (which I bust my butt in this household, I just don’t get paid for it)and just taking our children’s education in our own hands. It probably makes them think to themselves “am I doing the right thing for my own child/children”. I use to think the same thing when I first started homeschooling even. Nowadays I am very confident and happy with our decision to home-school our children. I can see where that makes a parent outside of home-schooling feel threatened. I don’t want anyone to think of me as a threat or that my kids are better than theirs. Nor do I want to be categorized as a family that is “super right religious” or even “just weird having unsocialized children “type of family.

My girls have lots of friends that are in the public school system, some of which are their best of friends. In the public imagination, homeschoolers are categorized as conservative and really religious families (Williamson K. D., 2012).While some families might be this, there are many families that are not like this. Let’s be honest the public school system have the same type of families! I just wish people would understand that homeschoolers are not much different than a public school educated child. They are all children learning in different ways, but learning for the most part the same material in most cases! It’s interesting to hear all the rumors that are said about homeschoolers.

            Now when the rumors are spread about what people think about homeschoolers initially, there is one thing that never seems to get a bad rumor or statistic. That’s that there is no research that shows children who are homeschooled are doing worse when it comes to grades compared to public school educated children (Williamson K. D., 2012).Home-school children continue to score above average on standardized tests compared to public school educated children (Williamson K. D., 2012). I would hope that these findings would prove it works being a homeschooling family. Also researchers found in several different studies that homeschooled children did in fact show great social, emotional, and psychological development (Williamson K. D., 2012). So why is that people who don’t agree with homeschooling or they don’t even want homeschoolers to be involved with extracurricular activities including athletics in their public schools even?

With that being said the “Tim Tebow Law “has passed in 30 states and there should not be issues, right? Wrong, I think this law allowing homeschooling kids to have the option to play in extracurricular activities including athletics is the first big step but now the concern of acceptance. I hear lots of people voice their anger against this law. Stating “Why is the school system not good enough for homeschooled kids but now sports are good enough”? Why do people think because we take our kids out the system, it means we think we are better than them? Or that we think the school system is so terrible. Hearing parent’s views on this law makes me wonder how these parents who do not agree with homeschooling will respond to homeschooled children joining there child’s team. How much information or anger have they heard from their parents about these homeschooled kids? Will they be bullied and picked on because they are different in their eyes? The question is would this be a situation in the end I want my children to be a part of?

 

Annotated Webliography: Where does the day go in our homeschooling home?

(Williamson, K.D. 2012)The last radicals, National Review , Retrieved October 15, 2012, from the Master File Premier database.
 

This article helped put homeschooling in perspective by stating homeschooling families pay their taxes to support local public schools. In which we do. So why is it society thinks we as homeschooling families should not have opportunity to participate in public school sports?