History for Texas homeschoolers was made on June 18, 2021, when Governor Abbott signed into law HB 547, the UIL Equal Access Bill. 

This made Texas the 36th state to allow homeschoolers to participate in UIL extracurricular activities through their local school.

Under the UIL Equal Access bill, school districts are allowed, at their discretion, to opt into the program to provide UIL extracurricular access to homeschoolers.

By the start of the 2021-2022 school year, 21 school districts had opted into the new UIL Equal Access Law. That number has since risen to 40.

School and homeschool students have reported consistently good results from the program, except in one district. In Tom Bean ISD, homeschooled students and the school were heavily sanctioned by UIL and other local districts in what Tom Bean and the students described as punishment for Tom Bean’s homeschool-friendly policies.

According to Tom Bean Superintendent Kelly Lusk, the sanctions against the school and the students are “the result of local resentment following the district’s decision to allow homeschool students to attend TBISD through the district’s open enrollment policy.”

Of the four students who received sanctions, only one of them participated in UIL activities under the Equal Access bill. The other three had previously been homeschooled but then enrolled full-time in Tom Bean ISD and began participating in extracurricular activities as public school students. Nevertheless, all four students and Tom Bean received heavy sanctions preventing them from participating in certain UIL competitions.

UIL and neighboring districts have claimed that the students were all recruited to come to Tom Bean for athletic purposes, a violation of UIL rules. This claim is vehemently denied by the families and Tom Bean ISD. 

Upon review of the facts, describing the student’s conduct as “recruitment” seems to require significant mental gymnastics.

In the 2021-2022 school year, four students enrolled in UIL extracurricular activities in Tom Bean ISD. Two of the families were already residents of Tom Bean ISD, and the other two took advantage of Tom Bean ISD’s open enrollment policies to transfer into the district.

One of the four students, a homeschooled student who had resided in Tom Bean ISD for 14 years, enrolled full-time in Tom Bean Middle School during 8th grade and participated in UIL throughout the spring semester as a public school student. Upon matriculation into the 9th grade, the student applied to participate in UIL for high school.

At this point, representatives from the neighboring school districts (known collectively as the District Executive Committee, or the DEC) accused the family of having been recruited and immediately sanctioned the student, preventing the student’s participation in UIL for two years.   

That same day, the DEC sanctioned another student, a homeschooled student who enrolled in UIL activities through Tom Bean under the UIL Equal Access bill. 

The DEC accused the family of having been recruited to move into the district in order to gain UIL access.

However, as the family pointed out, they moved to Tom Bean ISD in May of 2022 without any knowledge that, in July, Tom Bean ISD would opt-in to allow homeschoolers to participate in UIL activities. Thus, their move to Tom Bean ISD could not have been motivated by UIL athletics.

Neighboring schools send a clear message: Homeschoolers are not welcome.

The DEC (representatives from neighboring schools) decided that both students’ families were recruited to come to Tom Bean for athletic purposes and therefore should be ineligible for UIL varsity competition for two years.  Because of the severity of the sanctions, both cases were transferred to UIL’s State Executive Committee (SEC), where the decisions were upheld: 2 years of varsity ineligibility.

On August 29th and September 6th, two more families were questioned at a DEC meeting. 

Both families had homeschooled their students prior to full-time enrollment in Tom Bean ISD. Both families were incessantly questioned about possible recruitment and an “organized effort” to enroll homeschooled students in TBISD. Both were also penalized with UIL ineligibility.

UIL upholds decision to punish homeschooled students

Three of the four homeschooled families appealed the sanctions decision to UIL, but in each case, UIL upheld the sanctions. In fact, the UIL SEC chairman called the situation with the four families an “organized effort” to recruit homeschool students to Tom Bean for athletic purposes.

Central to UIL’s argument is a common element between the four students’ situations: Before coming to Tom Bean ISD, all four students were homeschooled and played sports – at one time or another – at Grayson Christian School. According to UIL and the DEC, this fact shows clear intent by the families to come to Tom Bean ISD so the students could continue playing sports together.

The families argue that this shared history is hardly surprising when one considers that Grayson Christian School is one of the only athletic opportunities that homeschool families in the area have. Thus, it should be no surprise that four athletically gifted students may have all participated there at some point.

Imagine you met four people who turned out to have all shopped together at the same grocery store. Would you consider it a suspicious “organized effort” if the store was one of the only grocery stores nearby? Probably not. 

The accusation of recruitment becomes even odder when one realizes that UIL is not accusing Tom Bean of recruiting the students. UIL has accused one of the student’s fathers of organizing the recruitment effort, including the “recruitment” of the father’s own son. Considering that parents are always the party responsible for enrolling their child in school, it is unclear how this can make a parent guilty of “recruiting” their own child.

Tom Bean ISD Superintendent Lusk notes that the students transferring is a normal occurrence; “We’ve worked hard to make Tom Bean a place people want to come and go to school at, I would say in relation to the number of kids that have come in for athletics this year, it’s very similar to the number that came in last year.”

Unfortunately, the DEC and SEC accusations and allegations of “recruitment” gave way to even harder sanctions. On September 26, 2022, the SEC voted to disqualify all of Tom Bean ISD from participation in football playoffs for 2 years.

The poorly contrived rationale for the sanctions and their heavy-handed severity leaves the clear impression that Tom Bean ISD and the families involved have been singled out because of their connection to homeschooling.

Each family attempted to do what was best for their student without knowledge that they would face such heavy-handed retribution.

Whether participating through the UIL Equal Access bill or by enrolling full-time in public school, students should not be punished by UIL because of their homeschool background.

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