CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s community of homeschoolers is waiting to see what Gov. Jim Justice is going to do with a plan that would allow some of the students to play sports on public school teams.
Supporters of the HB 3127 have avoided calling it the Tim Tebow bill after the former University of Florida quarterback who was homeschooled but played public school sports. In fact, the name Tim Tebow is located nowhere in the legislation which was completed and sent to the governor earlier this month.
Leaving Tebow out was by design, according to Jamie Buckland of Raleigh County who serves as a legislative liaison for homeschoolers and state coordinator for access of homeschoolers to the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission. Buckland said Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, the bill’s sponsor and House Education Committee chairman, thought after a nearly decade-long effort to get a Tebow bill passed it would be wise to take a different route.
The bill contains more requirements than a true Tebow bill would, Buckland said.
“He (Ellington) felt like our best bet was to kind of re-brand, to pitch this bill that was not a Tim Tebow Act,” Buckland said.
To have an opportunity to go out for a team or to participate in any other extra-curricular activity, the bill requires homeschooled students to register with their county board of education and prove through an accepted standardized test that they scored within or above the fourth stanine in each of five required subjects including science, social studies, math, reading and language.
Stanine, which stands for the standard nine, means students will “have to hit at least within that average bell curve” in testing in this current academic year, Buckland said.
The bill also requires the student to have been homeschooled this entire academic year.
“To make sure you don’t have (public school) students who are on the verge of truancy or students who are struggling to hit their 2.0 GPA (to participate in sports) and they say, ‘Hey we can go homeschool,’ in order to guard against that they have to be homeschooled this entire year,” Buckland said.
The bill also includes language similar to the SSAC transfer rule. A student leaving public school to be homeschooled would have to sit out 365 days before being eligible to play sports.
Other requirements in the bill include enrollment in at least one virtual school class through the public school system or the state Department of Education and homeschooled students are restricted to participate in the school zone in which they live.
Buckland said she doesn’t have an exact count but believes it’s possible as many as 200 homeschooled children in grades 6-12 may attempt to qualify for participation. A letter with 400 signatures of parents and others in support of the bill was recently sent to the governor.
Gov. Justice vetoed a Tim Tebow bill in 2017. He’s indicated he would sign this bill. His decision is required by March 25.
There hasn’t been a lot of fanfare in connection with bill signings because of the coronavirus and the associated concerns. For example, the governor signed the budget bill into law last Thursday without even an announcement from his office.