. . . Homeschooling
families who wish to
provide their children
with access to public
should work through
their local schools and
there is sufficient space in the classroom.”
These are academic courses, by and large,
offered as part of the high school’s regular
A third approach takes the flip side of
the second philosophy. It allows home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular and sports activities while not
necessarily opening the public school’s
doors to academic courses. For instance,
Pennsylvania has required its school districts to allow home-educated students
to participate in many extracurricular
activities, “including, but not limited to,
clubs, musical ensembles, athletics and
theatrical productions,” subject to certain reasonable rules.
3 Academic courses
are not included in this policy, and some
students have had to fight for the right to
compete in co-curricular activities such
as spelling bees. With fifty states and
countless individual school districts, one
can find some variety of these three approaches all across the nation.
Suing for Access?
What options are available for parents
living in jurisdictions that have simply
refused to open their public schools to
homeschoolers? Many states have not yet
passed an “equal access” law.
4 Due to the
mixed feelings about this controversial
issue within the homeschool community
itself, lobbying groups have not pursued
it to the same extent as other policies. In
jurisdictions without a formal “equal access” policy, there may or may not be discretion at the local school board to allow
homeschooled students to participate in
academic or extracurricular activities.
Additionally, statewide athletics associations may have their own rules governing
homeschool participation in interscholastic sports.
In those states where full “equal ac-
cess” is not available, some families may
be tempted to resort to the courts in an
effort to force school districts to grant
access. This approach has been tried in
the past, with no real success. Courts
in several states have rejected lawsuits
from parents who have argued that “un-
equal access” amounted to either illegal
discrimination against homeschoolers
or a punishment against families who
choose to exercise their religious free-
dom by teaching their children at home.
While these arguments have a basis
in law, decisions about limited public
school resources often involve complex
considerations, giving states sufficient
cover to avoid these legal attacks. For
that reason, the more successful lawsuits
(or threats of legal action) will be based
on existing “equal access” statutes that
are being ignored or misinterpreted by
local school officials.
Antony B. Kolenc (J.D., University of Florida
College of Law) is an author, speaker, and
law professor at Florida Coastal School of
Law. He is also a retired U.S. Air Force officer.
He and his wife have homeschooled their five
children for over a decade. Tony is author of
The Chronicles of Xan historical fiction trilogy, as well as many legal articles. Learn more
about him at www.antonykolenc.com. If you
have a law-related homeschooling question
that you would like to see Tony address in a
future column, please email TL@TheHome
1. Idaho Code § 33-203( 2).
2. Wisconsin Statutes § 118. 145( 4).
3. Pennsylvania 24 Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated § 13-1327.1(f. 1.)( 1).
4. See Home School Legal Defense Association
(HSLDA), State Laws Concerning Participation of
Homeschool Students in Public School Activities,
October 2012 (available at www.hslda.org/docs/
nche/Issues/E/Equal_Access.pdf) (compiling a
summary of equal access statutes in all 50 states).
5. See Antony B. Kolenc, Legally Speaking, “ ‘Tebow
Bills’ and Access to Public School Sports,” The Old
Schoolhouse Magazine, June 2012, at 124–25
(further discussing the move to open public
school sports to homeschooled athletes).
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