The latest controversy over high-school sports eligibility involves inconsistent policies for home-schooled kids.
Not long ago, a shadowy group calling itself S.T.O.P. (Stop Taking Our Players) called out high school football coaches at Timber Creek High School for allegedly raiding players from competing nearby teams.
No less than the Camden County Prosecutor's Office -- which had no business investigating these non-criminal allegations -- cleared the coaches. The matter is ongoing and now in the hands of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, where it should have been all along.
Now there's a new controversy about player eligibility involving a player who lives in the proper district, but is not enrolled at the host high school -- or any school. Can a home-schooled student play on the varsity team?
The school board at the sprawling Lenape Regional district in Burlington County just reaffirmed a ban on home-schooled players. The parents of Adam Cunard, a home-schooled 14-year-old from Tabernacle (which is within the boundary for Lenape's Seneca High School) had questioned the ban.
Adam's parents' gripe that he was allowed to play in the Seneca-based under-14 football league, which doesn't bar home-schoolers. But now that Adam is of ninth-grader age, the board says, he can't take part at the competitive, varsity level.
The board isn't trying to ruin a good grid prospect's future. It has sound reasoning for the ban. There's no way to know if Adam or any home-schooled player meets academic and disciplinary requirements for enrolled students to join, or stay on, the team. Can Mom verify that he's a "nice kid"? That's not exactly reliable.
The board's rule is defensible. The problem is that it's not consistent among schools that Seneca might face on the field or the court. (While football gets all the attention, the same rules apply to all varsity sports.)
Nearby, according to the Burlington County Times, a home-schooled student IS allowed to play sports at Rancocas Valley Regional High School. How is that, pardon the expression, an even playing field?
This issue is not going away. The Pandora's Box it opens extends to kids at small Christian or Jewish day schools that don't have their own teams. What about the field hockey whiz who'd rather play on a higher-ranked district high school team than the one at the Catholic school that she attends?
For years, a few state legislators have tried to enact a guarantee that home-schooled students are eligible to try out for their public school district teams. One current proposal from Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris) directs this policy for NJSIAA-governed sports.
The measures haven't gone far in the Legislature. One reason: The home-schooling community itself is split. Some fear that a law could open their kids' schooling to more state Department of Education oversight. Its regulations are why many of these parents yanked the kids from public school in the first place.
It's a dilemma, but the sports eligibility question deserves a more uniform answer. A good start would be to hash out the pros and cons of a bill like Webber's in committee hearings. No need to call in the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, though.
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