AS a parent that home schooled three sons, I can give you another KSHAA story -- in Ks. students that are not enrolled in public, or "approved" private schools, may not compete at any level of KSHAA events. that means that if you choose to educate your child at home, he will not be able to compete with any of his peers at any school event. we did compete in kids wrestling, and I took my oldest to 5k and 10k running events in Wichita, he was running about 50 miles a week at 17 and finished tenth out of 1500+ runners including several former olympians and some college runners at the 10K River run event at the Wichita River festival, which ultimately got him a scholarship at a juco, and he now runs at Emporia. All this was possible because I took him to non-school sponsored events at my expense and because he was not willing to accept the KSHAA's edict that he would not be able to compete. Later I discovered that I could have taken him to public school events as an unnattached athlete in lowly backwoods Oklahoma, but he certainly was not allowed to compete in cutting edge Kansas!! The really bad part of the whole deal, is that KSHAA as I understand it, is a semi-private organization that controls events pertaining to school age kids on a kind of a contract basis, and could be eliminated. That is only my understanding from communicating with KSHAA and some school officials, perhaps someone
non-KSHAA connected that is more informed concerning that relationship could enlighten me more about that. Son no. 3 is in public school due to the fact that I could not find a way to allow him a chance to compete in wrestling and Football outside of the KSHAA's control. KSHAA cites insurance reasons for this, but they are no more exposed to legal action from incidents involving Public school educated children than to home-educated ones, and they certainly don't mind accepting my tax money each year!
