Fax to member of the Senate Education Committee
Kay Brooks' 4/12/05

April 12, 2005

Senator

Nashville, TN
VIA FAX

RE: SB1356 Extracurricular activities and homeschooler participation

Dear Senator ,

This important issue is scheduled to be heard tomorrow morning and I ask you to take a few minutes to review the following in preparation for that hearing.

Tennessee homeschoolers have not been allowed to fairly and openly discuss this issue with TSSAA and this organization has kept many facts out of public view which has been very handicapping and the result has been that we are here looking to your committee for help.

In February of 2001 TSSAA had already appointed a homeschooling advocate, a former legislator named Page Walley. He wasn’t a homeschooler let alone fully schooled in the needs of our community. When I asked him to keep the greater homeschooling community apprised of events he said he couldn’t for an additional two months and further that I wasn’t allowed to publish his e-mail address so homeschoolers could conveniently share with  him, their own advocate, their concerns. The result was, according to the TSSAA, a 100% vote against us.

Mr. Baldridge told me at that time TSSAA had surveyed their members “two years ago” and there was a 96% no vote. In his testimony last week Mr. Baldridge said “Our membership, just two or three years ago, voted against this 94%, “ Homeschoolers don’t even know if this was a second survey, if Mr. Baldridge misspoke about the time the original survey was done or if a second survey really was done and the opposition dropped from 96% to 94%.

On March 10 of 2005 when I requested a copy of a letter written from the TSSAA attorney to their executive director for the homeschooling community to examine in preparation for these

 

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hearings Bob Baldrige wrote me they were “a busy volunteer organization” and “should you desire additional information concerning our communication with that sponsor you might wish to contact that person.” My immediate e-mail and subsequent phone call the next day to Executive Director Ronnie Carter making a second request for this document went unanswered.

If it’s not too late, TSSAA can demonstrate their cooperation by:

• Welcoming our self-selected advocates to the table and letting this team work with TSSAA to come as close as we can. It’s not enough that TSSAA appoint who speaks for homeschoolers, and then report back to us the advocate was so ineffective that TSSAA leadership voted 100% against us. It’s a control issue when Bob Baldridge tells THEA’s Mike Bell “Do a survey. I’ll take it to the committee.” Homeschoolers need to be their own advocates.
• TSSAA should be required to prove the need for the regulation and let us show them how we can meet legitimate needs and not just dictate from on high what they will or will not allow.
• These meetings should be open to the public for accountability purposes all the way around. Additionally, TSSAA should allow their members to vote via a secret ballot with homeschoolers present to verify the votes.
• The TSSAA can accommodate many more of Tennessee’s children by removing the prohibitions against their member teams from playing with non-member teams thereby eliminating the need for the legislature to pass Paragraph (1)(d) of the original SB1356. That would be a big step toward inclusivity and bring benefits to children in all teams.

Mr. Baldridge stated in his testimony last week he said that homeschoolers “don’t meet the standards that your children meet in school. They don’t go to class. They don’t make the grades.” However grade point average isn’t a criterion for participation according to the TSSAA eligibility rules on their website. And in these past two years we’ve discovered that grading across the state is not uniform and is subjective and discriminating against an entire class of citizens because of their legal educational choice is not the intention of the legislature.

Currently, the state of Minnesota is actually discussing moving all non-academic activities out of the public schools. The bill’s sponsors include the most conservative Republican member of their House and two Democrats, one of who is characterized as the most liberal, and they have several concerns which include the need to keep schools focused on their primary mission of academics, to take advantage of cost savings and to promote the more diverse interaction that occurs in community based programs, be they sports, theatre or music. One of those sponsors, Rep. Mark Buesgens (pronounced BISK-ens), tells me that they have gotten a lot of support from school board members, athletic directors and city recreational directors.

 

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The goal in all of this ought to be to enhance the education and physical health of all Tennessee children, not just those that play by TSSAA’s self-serving regulations. The National Association of State Boards of Education in studying the issues of athletic associations and academics is encouraging further study after finding several things that cause them concern.

Mr. Baldridge’s opinion last week about this being a church/state issue is a sad example of his lack of knowledge of both the First Amendment and our homeschooling community which becomes more diverse every day. If he got those basic facts incorrect after studying the issue since 1999 and before, what else does he and his organization have wrong about our community?

You know better than I do, that the Tennessee’s Constitution says the state legislature “shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools.”  It doesn’t say this has to be a closed system. It certainly doesn’t say that the legislature should provide protection to a quasi-governmental agent that will not accommodate the fullest number of your constituents’ participation in what educators and parents across the nation agree are activities that can round out the education and physical health of our children.

And finally, it’s not just about athletics; it’s also about debate, band, theatre and other activities as well. It’s easy to focus on athletics because TSSAA is our biggest opponent but let’s not overlook the other opportunities children are being prevented from participating in. The current homeschooling law even allows for these participations but Superintendents need to be encouraged to allow this. As it stands now, children are required to stare through that chain link fence or from their concert hall chair at what they cannot have even though they are citizens of our state.

We appreciate your time wrestling with this matter. Thank you for your service.

Most Sincerely,

[signed]

Kay Brooks
Founder
http://TnHomeEd.com
Kay@TnHomeEd.com