Here’s an interesting article from ESPNRISE.com on whether homeschooled kids should be able to join athletic teams for other schools.
It’s another dimension of the homeschooling issue that exploded earlier this year when a court opined that parents couldn’t homeschool without a valid teaching credential, and it features a San Diego teen who goes to a charter school that helps homeschoolers. That’s just what we wrote about earlier this year.
The ESPNRISE.com article follows Tate Forcier, a quarterback for Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego Unified, who “can’t imagine studying a textbook rather than studying a defense” on Fridays in the fall:
“I’ll tell my teacher, ‘I have a game today,’” Forcier said. “He’ll say, ‘That’s fine; you don’t have to come.’ And I’ll go to my football school and watch film all day.”
Forcier is different than most recruits. A member of the ESPNU150 (No. 141) and the 14th best quarterback in the country, he thrives in an alternative educational setting.
For two years at a public school, he was “getting left behind,” his father, Mike, said.
Now, he attends The Charter School of San Diego, a one-room facility where one student takes one class at a time with one teacher for three hours, two days a week.
Technically, it’s a charter school. Tate Forcier calls it “homeschooling, without a teacher coming to you.”
Because the school receives public money, the 6-foot-1, 183-pound University of Michigan commitment stars at Scripps Ranch, which is his local public school.
“Kids at other schools are always like, ‘You’re so cool; you’re so lucky to do that,’” said Forcier, who has doubled his workload to graduate in December. “It’s incredible. It’s like tutoring. I use every advantage I can get.”
The article goes on to say that other homeschooled teens aren’t as lucky, and are unable to participate in extracurricular activities such as athletics at public schools.