ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s home-schooled students would be able to participate in high school sports and extracurricular activities under a bill advancing in the state House, but only if they took at least one online course from the public school.
The House Education Committee voted 9-7 for House Bill 1055 on Thursday, sending it to the full House for more debate.
It’s a compromise that no one really likes – the Georgia High School Association remains opposed to participation by home-schooled students while the mother of a home-schooled wrestler thinks the requirement is “silly.” But it might be the key to getting Georgia’s version of Tim Tebow onto a playing field or on stage in a one-act play sometime soon.
The House has been the roadblock to approving home-schooler participation in public school interscholastic athletics. The state Senate voted 35-19 for a more permissive bill last year, but the House has taken no action on it.
“We’re trying to come to a resolution of an issue we’ve heard about for the last 10 years that I’ve been here and even before,” said House Education Committee Chairman Rick Jasperse, a Jasper Republican who is sponsoring the bill.