Ihsaa May Revise Rules On Eligibility

With its compromise to sports participation by home schoolers overruled by the state Legislature, the Idaho High School Activities Association is proposing to drop attendance and grade requirements for participants in interschool sports.

“This will put every kid in the sate on even ground,” Potlatch district superintendent Don Armstrong said.

The association board of directors voted 11-2 Tuesday to make sports eligibility contingent only on passage of a still-to-be-determined test - the criteria the Legislature said would apply to home schoolers.

Currently, full-time school students must meet grade and class attendance minimums to be eligible for sports participation.

“If passing a test is good enough for a home-school student, then a public-school kid should be able to take the same test, score well enough and be eligible,” Armstrong said.

The proposal will be up for final approval at the board’s mid-June meeting.

The test itself is the remaining issue, and the board directed association Executive Director Bill Young to contact the state Board of Education for clarification on what test is to be used, who should administer it and who pays the bill. The board will put the new eligibility requirement into effect for the coming school year, even though the legislation on home schoolers is worded so that it would not have to be in effect until the 1996-1997 school year.