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Tag: Public school

Private schools, public teams: Should public school sports be open to private school students?

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.”

House approves allowing chaplains in public schools

Key Points
  • The House approved SB1269 on a 31-29 vote
  • The measure would allow chaplains in public schools
  • Lawmakers believe it addresses counselor shortages, secularism

Saying that children need more God, the state House has approved allowing chaplains in public school classrooms.

Senate Bill 1269 would allow — but not require — school boards to invite chaplains from various religions into schools to provide “support, services or programs” to students.

Parents would be involved, and a list of available chaplains would be provided. Proponents say the plan is crafted to prohibit participants from proselytizing.

That did not satisfy foes who said if parents want religious counseling for their children they are free to get that elsewhere, either by taking them to a house of worship or, if they want it to be part of their academics, enrolling them in private or parochial school. And they pointed out that the state even provides vouchers of taxpayer funds for such an option.

There’s also the contention that chaplains would not be needed if the state properly funded counselors and therapists.

But proponents contend that there is still a need for students to get a different point of view.

Rep. David Livingston, R-Peoria, said students are dealing with everything from drugs to cutting themselves. 

“This bill is not the solution to everything in life,” said Livingston. But he said it could be one of the answers.

“What parents are wanting is more ethics, more discipline, and, I believe, more God in their schools,” he continued.

“When we talk about issues of suicide and cutting themselves, maybe a counselor is not what’s required,” Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande, said.

“Maybe faith and God is what is required,” she said. “I think we have to do a better job of including God in everything we do.”

Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, believes that the United States is creating a state religion in violation of the Constitution. That religion, he said, is secularism.

“We need to recognize that we should be turning to God, we should be looking to faith, and our children need opportunities to see faith and to look to a higher power,” Olson said. “And that’s what is available under this bill.”

The final House vote was 31-29. One Republican did, however, reject the proposal.

Rep. Nick Kupper, R-Surprise, told colleagues that he agrees with many of their arguments that there is no constitutional requirement to separate faith and state. But he said what’s in SB1269 goes too far.

“I think schools these days have become something quite different from when I was going to school,” said Kupper.

“I think we’ve made our public schools into mother, father, counselor, priest, rabbi,” he said, beyond the basic point of public education. “This bill expands what a school should be.”

A final Senate vote is needed before the measure goes to the governor.

On one hand, the legislation opens the door to counselors of all faiths — sort of.

To get on the list, a chaplain would have to be from a “local religious group.” But that is limited to those who meet at least monthly — and only if those meetings are at a site in which the district is located.

SB1269 then further defines eligible religions as those that have a hierarchy of teachers, clergy, sages or priests, has a regular practice of ritual or protocol — and “acknowledges the existence of and worships one or more supernatural entities that possess power over the natural world.”

All that raised questions from Rep. Stephanie Simacek, R-Phoenix.

Last month, during a committee hearing, Simacek raised the issue of how those rules would keep out counselors who are atheists, even if that is the preference of the parents.

That didn’t slow progress on the bill. So this week, with a roll-call vote on the floor, she argued that the measure violates parental rights in other ways.

“I’m the parent of two in public education,” Simacek argued. This bill, she argued, would allow a chaplain “to preach to my child what is right and what is wrong.”

Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, had her own take.

She said some kids need to talk with trained adults about issues, such as counselors or social workers. Yet Arizona averages only one counselor per about 600 students, while the national standard is one per 250.

“We are vastly underfunded,” she said. “It’s a critical role.”

And Gutierrez said nothing in this bill helps.

“All this does is put volunteers on a campus to talk about spirit, religion,” she said. “And that’s not going to help these kids who are harming themselves.”

Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, warned of another potential problem.

Under Arizona law, teachers, counselors, therapists and social workers are all “mandatory reporters.” That means they are required to inform police or the Department of Child Safety if there is reason to believe a child has been abused or neglected. This can also include situations where a child says something to the person.

But the Stahl Hamilton pointed out the requirement to report specifically exempts clergy if they get a confidential communication or confession in connection with their religious duties. And that, she said, would include those who are working as volunteer chaplains.

“I find that very disconcerting that we are creating a loophole for clergy who are not held to the same standard, high standards, as our educators or any other school personnel,” Stahl Hamilton said.

But Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said his own life experiences led him to believe the proposal was a good thing.

“Not everybody loves Jews,” Kolodin told colleagues. “And that was certainly the case while I was in school.” 

“And I kind of wish I’d had the opportunity to have a chaplain of my religion in school while I was dealing with some of that stuff because I think it could have helped,” he continued.

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