Coach Chass,
I value your opinion and knowledge on this soccer forum, but will have to agree to disagree with you on this one.
If home schooled kids were allowed to play on their school district teams, I doubt there would have been any home school teams. I know of two kids that drive 1+ hour to Greenville to practice/play on a home school team. Their father has lamented to me personally that he wished SC would allow them to play sports for their local high school team.
As far as representation, I do not see the point? The Greenville home school team brings in players from all over the Upstate. Why would they represent that team any more or any better than they would represent their local school team if they were allowed to play there? If a home schooled kid is wearing the colors of a team, are you saying he would not represent that team/school to the best of his/her ability, but they would represent a home school team that they have to travel to? Hard to fathom the logic. Maybe I am missing something?
I understand your argument that the school would get some more money if the home schooled kid was actually enrolled, however, the home school families are paying taxes and all public schools in SC are benefiting. The average dollars per student goes up if the same amount of money is funding fewer students. So, the home school kids are actually helping fund the education of the public school kids without receiving any of the benefits - sports programs being one of the benefits. No public school is benefiting more than another because kids are home schooling as all the home schooled family's taxes go into the the overall kitty. What you did not talk about is the private schools that SCHSL allows to play in the public leagues. Those families tax money goes into the overall kitty for all public schools as well. Once again, creating more dollars per student for the public schools. Is it because they are more organized and have enough kids to play under their own banner that gives them more privilege by SCHSL over a home schooled kid?
My kids go to public school, so I do not have a dog in the fight so to speak. I just cannot see any rational reasoning behind the decision, and thought someone might know the actual decision criteria. I was not trying to stir up controversy which I obviously did. As Coach J states, it is probably best to ask SCHSL directly. If they answer, I will post their reasoning.
