Friday, February 13, 2004 11:13 AM CST
Panel: No extracurriculars for home-schooled
BY DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
CHARLESTON -- Students will have to be in school, at the school, to play sports under a recommendation the school board will get at its meeting next week.
A committee that looked into a parent request to allow home-schooled students to participate in district extracurricular activities is suggesting the board not allow it. The recommendation is on the agenda for the board's meeting on Wednesday.
"It's not as simple as it's perceived," said Charleston Middle School Assistant Principal Clyde Frankie, who headed the committee that studied the request. He said he thinks the biggest "stumbling block" is accountability for home-schooled students' academic progress.
"I don't think we can ask the students in-house to have a different standard," Frankie said.
He said the Illinois High School Association and the Illinois Elementary School Association require a school district to accept home-schooled students' credits toward graduation if the district lets them participate in extracurricular activities.
"We would have to accept their curriculum," Frankie said. "They could graduate and receive a diploma having never attended a class in the building."
Keith and Ellen Wolcott made the request to the board. Their children, Jane, 14, and Scott, 16, have taken band classes through the district since grade school, but are otherwise home-schooled, and their daughter wants to participate in soccer and track at Charleston High School.
Ellen Wolcott said the graduation concern could be addressed with a requirement that diplomas only go to students who have fulfilled their graduation requirements while attending classes at a school.
"I think most home-schoolers don't want a diploma from a school," she said.
The school district could check home-schooled students' progress with an annual test and with weekly reports from parents during the students' sport season to meet academic eligibility requirements.
"They don't have to pay anyone to check that work," Wolcott said. "They could keep it on file until a question came up. We were hoping they could trust the parents."
But while the Wolcotts have shown that they're home-schooling their children adequately, that might not be the case with every family that wants homed-schooled students to participate, Frankie said.
"Yes, I think they could do a very good job," he said of the Wolcotts. "The problem is, we have to be uniform. Right now, I don't think we can oversee it to a degree that it can be manageable."
Frankie said the biggest question about home-schooling quality is, "Who verifies it?" Teachers, if they were willing to do it, would have to be compensated, requiring contract negotiations, while principals might not feel qualified to review work in a subject area that's not their specialty, he said.
Also, the federal government's "No Child Left Behind" requirements mean teachers are supposed to be "highly qualified" in their subject areas while parents might not be, Frankie added.
Wolcott said she doesn't know if she and her husband will attend Wednesday's board meeting because they're expecting the board to turn down their request.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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