Key Points:

• Legislation would allow private school students to compete on public school sports teams

• Advocates believe the bill allows access to important programs for private school students

• Opponents believe it would unfairly disenfranchise public school students from clubs and sports

Republicans who have championed school choice programs, including a voucher program that allows state money to fund private school tuition, now want to require Arizona’s public school districts to let private school students compete on their sports teams.

But the legislation raises several concerns, not the least of which is whether it would displace students already attending those public schools from team rosters.

The measure championed by Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, comes as some districts allow private school students to join their local high school teams while others — including his home district — do not.

Kavanagh argues that private school students should have the same opportunity to participate in interscholastic sports as students attending public school if their private school doesn’t offer those activities. 

“Extracurricular school activities, be it football or the chess club, they’re an important part of the student’s learning activities and also an important part of their mental health,” Kavanagh told a House committee last month. 

The measure was approved by the House last week on a voice vote and awaits a formal vote. It has already passed the Senate. 

Kavanagh noted he sponsored a law several years ago that lets home-schooled students try out for public school teams. He said private school students should also have the opportunity.

Senate Bill 1693 includes protections to prevent parents from “gaming the system,” including rules that students must live within the boundaries of the public school whose team they want to play on. Additionally, those students must also have passing grades, and their private school must not offer the sport or activity. They’ll also need to pay any fees that all players must pay and a pro-rated share of the program costs.

Democrats and associations representing school districts and high school sports strongly oppose the measure, arguing that private school students could take spots on a team and displace children attending public schools.

“You guys can change a number of laws down here, but you can’t change the rules related to certain sports,” Mark Barnes, a lobbyist for the Arizona School Administrators Association, told the House Education committee during a recent hearing. “Soccer, there’s 11 people on the field; basketball, five people on the court; baseball, each team gets nine people … There’s a capacity in all these programs, so you can’t just open up teams to an infinite amount of people.”

Barry Aarons, a lobbyist for the Arizona Interscholastic Association and the Arizona Association of School Superintendents, echoed those concerns and listed several others.

“First, let me tell you that choice is choice,” Aarons told the House panel. 

He noted that parents choose their child’s school for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the school they choose doesn’t have a particular sport. 

That’s a tradeoff the parents accepted, Aarons argued, and forcing a local school they don’t attend to let them play on teams and keep a student at that school from participating just isn’t fair. 

“Fountain Hills district has chosen not to allow this,” he said, referring to Kavanagh’s community.

“That is their choice as a school board,” Aarons said. “Mesa Public Schools has chosen to allow it. That is their choice.”

Aarons also pointed to the growing number of “micro-schools” created for athletic participation. He said those schools could put together a roster of top-notch players and then get them all to try out for a school’s team, overwhelming the current players. 

Kavanagh argued that parents pay property taxes to their local school district and should be allowed the benefits.

“The parents pay the same amount of taxes for it — I don’t know why you want to exclude kids,” Kavanagh said during a Senate hearing on the bill. 

Barnes dismissed the tax argument. He noted that people pay taxes to fund the corrections department, community college districts and many other government functions even if they don’t use those services.

“Just because someone pays taxes, I don’t think that alone qualifies them to allow their child to go participate in a district school sport when they have chosen another school,” Barnes said. “We’re not expecting the private schools that take (a school voucher) to open up a sport that they may have (that) a district doesn’t offer.”

Sen. Catherine Miranda, D-Laveen, asked Kavanagh whether he was concerned that a private school student would not fit in with public school students who know each other and are already bonded. Kavanagh dismissed the concerns.

During House debate this past week, Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, pointed out what she said were built-in inequities in Kavanagh’s bill that are unfair to children attending public school.

She noted that all it requires to show private school students are passing their classes is a note from their parents — not the formal review of grades that students enrolled at a public school need. She also said there’s nothing preventing private schools from joining the Arizona Interscholastic Association and fielding their own sports teams to compete across the state.

Some already do.

Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit school for boys in Phoenix, is an AIA member, as are Salpointe Catholic High School, Pusch Ridge Christian Academy and Gilbert Christian School.

“When we’re talking about parent choice and school choice, if you choose a school that does not have sports, then that’s the school you choose,” Gutierrez said.

“So if sports is the most important thing to a student, they should choose a school that has a vibrant sports activity,” she continued. “This is not … have your cake and eat it too. This is you choose, and then you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, pushed back, noting that many parents choose a private school because their child has a reading deficit like dyslexia that their local public school isn’t able to address.

“I believe that this is far more of a complicated issue than opponents would let on to,” he said.

“So when I hear my colleague … say, ‘you get what you get,’ sorry if you have a learning disability, no sports for you, you can’t engage in these interscholastic activities, I think that is downright disappointing,” Gress said. “We should be helping all kids in the state of Arizona, regardless of where they come from, regardless of the school environment that they are in. We want every kid to thrive. That’s what this is about.”