M-S Policy Committee hears proposal to change extra-curricular policy for non-public school students

A policy proposal to change Mahomet-Seymour School Board Policy 7:40, the measure to allow non-public school children to participate in Mahomet-Seymour extracurricular activities, was introduced to the board policy committee on Sept. 30.

Board member Colleen Schultz presented a revised policy, taking the policy from not allowing nonpublic children to participate in extracurricular activities to allowing them to do so.

Currently, board policy 7:40 states: “Nonpublic students, regardless of whether they attend a District school part-time, will not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities.”

Schultz’ first draft states: “A nonpublic school student is eligible to participate in: (1) interscholastic competition, provided his or her participation adheres to the regulations established by any association in which the School District maintains a membership, and (2) non-athletic extracurricular activities, provided the student attends a District school for at least one course during the regular school term, excluding lunch. A non-public student who participates in an extracurricular activity is subject to all policies, regulations, and rules that are applicable to other participants in the activity.”

The State of Illinois does not address the topic of whether or not public schools should or should not allow non-public children to participate in extracurricular activities, but instead, leaves the decision to each school board.

Schultz said her policy is similar to what the Illinois Association of School Boards suggests.

In looking at area school district policies in preparation for the meeting, Schultz found that Champaign, Monticello and Gibson City and Mahomet-Seymour were the only school districts that do not allow non-public students to participate.

Schultz said that while Urbana, Blue Ridge and Fisher, among other school districts, allow non-public students to participate in extra-curricular activities, each district has its own set of rules and guidelines for how that works.

“They have different set-ups and different ways that they decide to allow it,” she said.

Schultz said that she is aware of a family that homeschools their children within the Unity School District. She said the family brought the curriculum the student was completing into the principal. After the principal acknowledged that the student was receiving an education, he was able to participate on the baseball team.

Policy committee member Lori Larson said that “financial conscienciousness” has been a topic of conversation among board members lately. She asked about financial implications and how the district monitors school eligibility.

“I tell you this, you don’t probably know this about me, but I had a job where I did social work and guidance, and I was the eligibility person,” Larson said. “It takes a lot of time to go make sure that (the students) have done their homework, and that kind of thing, and that they are eligible to be in the activity.”

Larson said that the district needs to consider how many students might be coming into the programs and how much time it would take to monitor their activities. She said that if the district is adding someone to monitor homeschool students, it might take away from the district being able to add another teacher.

Schultz said that the IHSA requires that the student has to live within the school district and be taking an approved curriculum to participate in interscholastic competition.

“That is a one-time deal,” Schultz said.

She added that the board could decide how that approval takes place.

Because homeschool groups exist within the Mahomet-Seymour area, Schultz said that might cut down on the number of curriculums that need to be approved.

“It wouldn’t be every family has a different set-up,” Schultz said.

Schultz, who spent a decade doing articulations and class approval for University of Illinois students, said that course approval is a one-time process.

She also said that grades and eligibility are also approved by the teacher, which in the homeschooling case is the parent. In other school districts with a homeschool participation policy, parents are required to submit their child’s eligibility, just as teachers at the school are required to do so.

Schultz met with Mahomet-Seymour Athletic Director Matt Hensley who told her that teachers at the high school turn in the student-athletes eligibility online.

Larson asked what grade levels might be affected by the policy change.

Schultz envisioned that the change would encompass students in grades K-12.

“Financially homeschool parents pay the same taxes as everyone else,” Schultz said. “And so they are contributing in the same way as everyone else for activities.”

“We are not asking that the school create activities just for homeschool kids, but just that they participate in the things that we already have.”

Policy committee member Meghan Hennesy asked if the parents would also pay the district’s activity fee.

Schultz said they would.

“One of the common things that I hear, which you guys didn’t say, but I’m going to throw it out there, is that if parents don’t think that the school is good enough for their kid to go to, then why are they involved in extracurricular activities?” Schultz said.

Schultz said from her point of view and from the view of the homeschool parents she talked to, “it seems to be more about a world view, and not about a slam on public education.”

She continued to say that some parents might homeschool their children for religious or philosophical reasons or maybe that a child has learning needs that can’t be met.

Schultz said that the reasons parents do not enroll their children in public school should not keep the children from participating in extra curricular activities.

Hennesy said that she has not only heard parents talk about this subject since she was elected to the board in April, but also during the seven years she’s lived in Mahomet.

“If we are only one of four schools who are not figuring out how to do this, I feel like it would be worth our time and effort to actually take this on and figure out how to get these kids in,” Hennesy said.

Hennesy continued to say that eligibility reports should not be an issue.

“The nice thing is that we have the benefit of technology. There’s no reason that we can’t set up some sort of web-service form, some way, some mechanism,” she said.

“I think figuring out how to track whether or not a student’s teacher or parent says that they are eligible or passing each week, or whatever interval we think is appropriate, is not the hardest thing to do.”

She said she’d like to explore what the district would need, as far as tools and manpower, to make that work.

“That does not seem like an ongoing project once you do the development piece of it,” Hennesy said.

Hennesy said that it might be worth looking into how some of the other school districts make the participation component work so the M-S district may be able to model its program from something that is already in place.

Superintendent Lindsey Hall said that it is important to remember that Mahomet-Seymour is one of four school districts in the area, not in the entire state, that do not permit homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities.

Larson asked about the number of students who might come to the district asking to participate in the extracurricular activities.

“We had a hard enough time getting a budget approved,” Larson said.

Larson said understanding the amount of students would give the district the “foresight to plan.”

“Before we make a policy and present it to the whole board, I’d like to have all the ducks in a row,” Larson said.

Hensley said that Hennesy was correct in saying that if the 7:40 policy changed, the district would not have to reinvent the wheel, but “there’s more to that than just the eligibility piece.”

Larson said, “What if 50 kids want to go out for football or basketball or the speech team?”

She continued to say that the district pays sponsors stipends.

Schultz said that she was not suggesting that the district make additional team spots or give homeschool students preferential treatment, but that the students have the same opportunity to participate in the same athletic, academic and social activities as their peer group.

“If there is a football team, and they have tryouts for the football team, if you don’t make the football team, then you can’t be on the football team,” Schultz said.

Larson said that she wanted to know how many students might be participating and the financial impact, not if student-athletes would make the team or not.

Hennesy said the team or activity limits are important to keep in mind because the sponsors would not be required to keep more participants than their roster or vision allowed.

“The mechanism for funneling people onto teams is not different, the funnel is just wider,” Hennesy said. “You still have to tryout, the teams will still have whatever they deem is the appropriate number…”

“So we don’t have a way to find out the number of people there might be,” Larson asked.

Hennesy suggested a survey.

Schultz said she would work to find out approximately how many homeschooled students there are in the Mahomet-Seymour area. She didn’t have the information on how that would financially impact the district, though.

Larson said that the policy would add another responsibility to someone’s job.

“Okay, so I am responsible for making sure that these 75 students are eligible to participate in all their activities,” she said. “That takes time away from something else.

“That’s why I want to know how much it is and how much to prepare for. It’s the plan to figure out how to get there. It’s a hurdle. Can we jump over that hurdle by getting some background information?”

Schultz said she would be happy to get that information, but she cautioned that the policy suggestion was not in response to a specific request, but rather a general interest, and she would not be able to provide concrete data.

“There might be a homeschool person that I don’t know,” she said.

Larson said that usually there is a reason for creating a policy.

Hennesy said, “I think it’s a result of hearing from people in our community who are taxpayers who are saying we would really like you to look into making it possible for our kids who are homeschooled to participate in extracurricular activities.

“What we are doing is listening to the public.”

Schultz said that extracurricular programs are offered to students who attend all-day school, regardless of interest.

“We don’t say, well, we just don’t feel like paying for a speech team, so we aren’t going to have a speech team this year even though all those kids want to go to the speech team,” she said.

Larson said that school district has cut extracurricular programming in the 22 years she has been involved.

“It was pretty devastating to kids who lost their extracurricular activities,” Larson said.

“If you don’t want to do it, it’s fine. I just wanted more information. I didn’t realize it was not okay to ask that. I’m so sorry.”

Schultz said several times that she was happy to provide the information.

“If the parents are taxpayers, we shouldn’t make those students second-class citizens, but I’m super happy (to get the information),” she said.

Larson said that the demographic study that was completed in January would give the district some insight.

Larson asked Hensley what has been cut in the past.

Hensley said that at this point, there are coaching stipends within the negotiated contract that remain to be filled.

Hensley continued to talk about how, should the board approve the policy, essentially, as the district approved the curriculum of homeschool students, it would also be approving credit hours towards a high school diploma without the students ever taking a course at Mahomet-Seymour.

Schultz said that as she articulated courses at the University of Illinois, the process was to include dashes in the courses to have them count as electives so that students would be required to take coursework at the University in order to receive a diploma.

Hennesy and Larson voted to bring the policy to the entire board for a first review. Schultz will bring additional data to the presentation.