Bill Draws Opposition Over High School Sports Recruiting Concerns

February 21, 2012

Past concerns about recruiting players by high school teams is running square into the desire to foster school choice. A bill intended to open up public school sports programs to more kids who don’t go to public schools drew heavy debate Monday and opposition from organizations involved in scholastic athletics, who fear it may unintentionally open the door to more high school recruiting.

One of the main thrusts of the bill  is to broaden the mechanism by which students at small independent and private schools can participate in interscholastic sports.

Right now, some students – those at really small schools that are too little to even contemplate fielding many athletic teams, and which in fact don’t offer sports programs – can play on their zoned public school team while attending the private school. Homeschoolers can too.

The bill would say that students at larger private schools could also play for their local public school. Another part of the bill changes the benefit of the doubt in cases in which a student changes schools within the school district in the middle of the school year to presume that the student wasn’t changing schools because he or she was recruited.

Under current rules, students who change schools mid-year when their family hasn’t moved, must sit out at their new school for a period if there’s an accusation of recruiting. The bill changes that to allow students who transfer to continue to play.

Officials with the Florida High School Athletic Association and the Florida Council of Independent Schools said the measure would increase recruiting of high school athletes by rival coaches.

But the response shouldn’t be to punish the players, said the bill sponsor, Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland.

“I understand that recruiting is a big problem,” said Stargel. “But let the student play until you prove he’s been recruited.” The bill passed the committee and now goes to the Education Committee, its last stop before the floor.

NorthEscambia.com file photos.

Story by The News Service of Florida

Comments

4 Responses to “Bill Draws Opposition Over High School Sports Recruiting Concerns”

  1. 429SCJ on February 22nd, 2012 7:02 am

    When sports stop being just a game of sportmanship, and becomes the means to an end?

  2. a on February 21st, 2012 8:54 am

    Many homeschooled families choose to be under “umbrella” schools for various reasons-usually to aid in getting a diploma from an accredited high school and for help with transcripts and college admissions. These umbrella schools are considered private schools. As the law reads now, if these private schools exceed 125 students, then the students are not allowed to play sports for their zoned public school. The new law would do away with that number. As usual, sports is big business for some of these schools, and with jobs, money, prestige, etc. on the line, greed will rear its ugly head and probably cause this bill to get sidelined. BTW-Tim Tebow was a homeschooler allowed to play ball in his zoned school. What a loss if he hadn’t been able to play sports!

  3. mad Dogg on February 21st, 2012 8:22 am

    I believe home school kids can play sports now, as long as its with the school they are zoned. Somebody on the inside is pushing this bill to cover there hide though. A private school is there choice to go there, they should think of sports before they decide to go.

  4. QA187 on February 21st, 2012 6:40 am

    so does this mean homeschooled children and alternitive schools can play at high school games? if so that is good everyone should be able to play sports it good un

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News, Sports, TOP sports