Tim Tebow Bill

Yesterday, I went to the capitol with my co-op to lobby about the Tim Tebow bill. I am for this bill and feel free to tell me in the comments if you are for this bill or against it once I tell you what it is. This bill would allow homeschool students to participate in the public schools' extra-curricular activities with a few exceptions. Homeschool students would have to pass an approved, national-standardized test in order to be eligible to participate. They would not take a STAAR test because the STAAR test can reflect on that particular school's curriculum, but they will need to take a test that matches their grade level. They will also not get to pick which school they participate with. They will participate with the school in their district. It is called the Tim Tebow bill because Tim Tebow was a homeschool student and he  participated in extracurricular activities in his public school in Florida and through that route he was selected for college scholarship and ultimately  went on to play professionally in the NFL (It stands for National Football League for those of you who don't watch football). Imagine if a homeschool student had that kind of potential as well. We would want to be noticed by college scouts and even by our community. I understand that a homeschool kid could be noticed, but think about how much more noticeable we would be in a public school. Here are the reasons I am for the Tim Tebow bill...

1. Travel

If we could participate in the extra-curricular activities in the public school of our district, it would save some of us a lot of time and gas money. I know that every Monday when I go to volleyball practice, it takes us at least 40 minutes to get there. But if I went to my public school for volleyball practice, it would take me less than 5 minutes. I could participate in YMCA volleyball, but  I am most interested in a more competitive level in my sport. ?

2. Facilities

I know that there are homeschool students who would love to play in a gym for sports instead of  outside in the burning hot weather, the freezing cold weather, or the rarely occurring perfect weather. Actually, in the case of perfect weather, we would rather play outside than in a gym. Now, we could probably find a co-op or open gym somewhere, but that brings us back to the traveling benefit. The only place I have found with an open gym is the YMCA, but as a shared facility for members and programs the availability to the youth recreation programs is more limited than the facilities at public schools dedicated strictly for this purpose.

3. Taxes

Technically, I don’t pay taxes, but my parents do. What do taxes cover? Well, they cover construction with roads, Some other stuff I don’t know, and PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Wait a minute… So we pay for public schools to have extracurricular activities and for our co-op sports, but we only get to participate in one of those things that we pay for? That doesn’t make very much sense. But what if we could? Then we could get our money’s worth out of it.

Thank you for reading my blog! You can ask questions about the Tim Tebow bill in the comments and I will do my best to answer them for you. The decision to pass the Tim Tebow bill or not will be decided tomorrow. Fingers crossed!