<p>There is now a national basketball championship for homeschoolers, and some star students are recruited by NCAA colleges. </p>
<p>Tim Tebow, University of Florida quarterback and current Heisman Trophy winner, was a home schooler.</p>
<p>In the article it mentioned that only 18 states grant access to high school sports for homeschoolers. Luckily we live in one of them. My son has competed on the high school team all four years. He won his events at the state meet and last week the principal introduced him in a school wide assembly to celebrate it. He even has a letterman's jacket for this high school. They put his picture up on the gym's wall-of-fame. It's all kind of funny... being that he's a homeschooler. However he did represent the school, and has been the backbone of the team for some time now. He's even been the team captain for the last two years, as well as the representative to the student athlete leadership team. The coach and the athletic director have been so sweet telling him how sad it is that this is his last year.</p>
<p>The other night he was asked to appear at a school board meeting to represent his team getting a statewide honor related to their GPA. (I have no idea how his, such as it is, would be factored into that equation.)</p>
<p>He competes in a club team year-round, so it's not like the high school was essential to him athletically, but it's been fun for him. Not quite so serious as the club training and competitions.</p>
<p>A couple kids on the high school's snowboarding team are homeschoolers too.</p>
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In the article it mentioned that only 18 states grant access to high school sports for homeschoolers. Luckily we live in one of them.
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<p>I live in one of the other ones. But one annoyance we encountered this school year was that even though our state has public school open enrollment, it also tries to restrict transfers between school districts to pursue extracurriculars (to prevent the formation of "dream teams"). We live in a school district that doesn't have a competitive debate team, and debate is regulated by the same quasi-official body that regulates high school sports. It took THE WHOLE SCHOOL YEAR to get a straight answer, consistent with state statute, about how to keep our son involved in debate. A year is a terrible thing to waste--besides, who ever worries about a high school forming a dream debate team?</p>
<p>It's the same here - that speech&debate is regulated by the state high school athletic association. My other kid isn't an athlete, but is a successful speech&debater.</p>
<p>The rules here are very strict about homeschooled kids ONLY competing at the school where the parents live within the residential enrollment boundaries. There is no option for kids whose parents live within the residential boundaries of a school that doesn't have a team at all. That is pretty unfortunate for those kids. We're lucky the high school here has a very strong speech&debate team. The sports team my son has been on is much less strong, but it's essentially an individual sport anyway, plus he has his year-round club team, so the quality of the HS team isn't really an issue. It was more just a fun thing to do for him.</p>
<p>You didn't say exactly... but did the transfer question get resolved in your son's favor?</p>
<p>In this state, a homeschool can join the state athletic league, and then as a member form a joint team agreement with a public high school. Or, in the alternative, any homeschooler can try out for the high school team in the high school of his own district of attendance. The answers I got at the beginning of the school year were inconsistent with statute and confusing besides, so I finally had my state senator's office look into the rules.</p>