Bill could let Fla. charter school students participate in private school activities

Rep. Byron Donalds
Donalds

A bill filed this week would allow Florida’s charter school students to play sports, or take part in other extracurricular activities, at private schools.

The state already has a “Tim Tebow” law that allows homeschool students — as well as students enrolled in charters or other schools of choice — to sign up for teams at their zoned public school, or other public schools they would otherwise attend.

The goal of the law is to give students in educational choice programs access to extracurriculars that might not otherwise be available.

HB 119 would give private schools the ability to expand those options for charter school students who “develop an agreement” to participate. It would apply to “interscholastic extracurricular activities,” which would include chess clubs or debate teams.

The bill was filed by Byron Donalds, a freshman Republican from Naples who could be active on other education issues. His wife is a school board member and charter school backer in Collier County.

Extracurricular activities have been a perenial topic of debate in Tallahassee, as lawmakers try to adjust old traditions to the new definition of public education.


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.