Contact members of the House K-12 Education Budget Committee and urge them to oppose HB 2511. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Tarwater who appears to have found another way to slight public school students with a bill that would allow homeschool kids to participate on their local public high school teams. They have a hearing at 3:30 today (Monday). We did not submit formal testimony but emailed the following comments to committee members. We’re attaching committee member email addresses and a link to the bill and the hearing livestream in the comments. Here’s our email.
I am writing to urge you not to pass HB 2511. We missed the deadline for submitting testimony, but ask you to consider our input. (There are a lot of bills coming through this and other committees this week, and we are a volunteer-led organization.) KSHSAA has multiple rules for student-athletes that could not be enforced for non-public school athletes under HB 2511.
- Public school athletes must be students in good standing at the school for which they are competing.
- They have to comply with school conduct policies to maintain their ability to compete for their teams.
- They must be passing 5 classes.
- They are required to be present at school on meet/game days and are not free to rest at home prior to competing.
- They take pride in representing their school. They are classmates and teammates, and they work to earn the privilege of wearing their school colors.
Additionally, some talented athletes choose to homeschool to provide themselves greater opportunities to train, compete and rest without having to devote the time and energy required to attend classes and keep up with a normal high school schedule. That is their right, but it would be unfair for such athletes to compete with students attending high school and competing for their high school teams.
Simply put, Kansas high school students work hard to earn the right to represent their high schools and shouldn’t be replaced on their rosters by athletes who aren’t their classmates. Other students still have opportunities to participate in club sports outside of KSHSAA.
You can contact members of the House K-12 Education Budget Committee by email:
- Kristey.Williams@house.ks.gov
- Kyle.Hoffman@house.ks.gov
- Valdenia.Winn@house.ks.gov
- Stephanie.Byers@house.ks.gov
- Susan.Estes@house.ks.gov
- JoElla.Hoye@house.ks.gov
- Steve.Huebert@house.ks.gov
- Timothy.Johnson@house.ks.gov
- Brenda.Landwehr@house.ks.gov
- Jarrod.Ousley@house.ks.gov
- Patrick.Penn@house.ks.gov
- Sean.Tarwater@house.ks.gov
- Adam.Thomas@house.ks.gov
Link to hearing recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz8QE4Tv0W0
Originally posted to Facebook 1/31/2022