TSSAA
April 2001

 The following is a copy of the e-mail I sent to the TnHmsch-Legislation list back in February of 2001 which relates my conversations with both Page Walley who was acting as the homeschool representative to the TSSAA and Bob Baldridge of the TSSAA.

 

From: "Kay Brooks" <jkbrooks@bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue Feb 27, 2001  8:53 am
Subject: HS & TSSAA--Page Walley and Bob Baldridge conversations
--- In tnhmsch-legislation@yahoogroups.com

 

I hope you'll forgive me for taking a day or two to report my conversation with Mr. Walley adn TSSAA. I'm still having trouble with my web designing software and I felt like I needed to get the legislation up on the web for everyone before reporting this. The rest of the site is a dead link nightmare in the meantime. May have been a bad call but here's the dope anyway. Thanks for bearing with me.

Saturday, 2/24/01 about 5:00 p.m. after playing telephone tage Page Walley and I spoke. He's a former legislator of 10 years. It was one of the sponsors of HB480 Beth Harwell who told me that he was the friend she filed this bill on behalf of. You'll remember he isn't a homeschoolers but his children are in private school and he want them to be able to continue in their sport if he actually does homeschool them in the future. He said that in his area (Fayette & Chester Counties) groups already are participating in some activities but not athletics. Mr. Walley saw this issue as a need and is willing to carry the ball in this matter.

He said he and his wife, Terry, had studied this issue extensively. That the bill was modeled after Wyoming and Massachusetts. (I've since come to find out that MA participation is the result of court orders. I've got more info coming.) He told me that he was approached by TSSAA. That they have a committee studying this issue because they feel it's inevitable that HS have some participation. He isn't on the committee but hopes to be on it perhaps by April. There are no homeschoolers on this committee.

Mr. Walley said he saw this TSSAA participation as an opportunity to attract parents to PS for the first time. He stated that the legislature, TSSAA and the bill sponsors are not likely to move aggressively until next year. If the TSSAA doesn't come up with some accomodating rules then sponsors will push this legislation next year. This can be done because TN legislative sessions run for two years. This current one just began in January.

 Mr. Walley said the original intent was to have those HSers interested in enrolling through LEA to be able to participate in sports. He said that this legislation has gotten serious attention from TSSAA specifically because of Mr. Walley's contacts in the legislature (which he asked me not to name). He stressed, several times, that HSers could run TSSAA off if not handled diplomatically. Somewhere in here he made reference to all the trouble Rep. Bill Dunn had regarding this issue. I'm unaware of any of this and if someone else can reliably fill in the blank here I would appreciate it.

 What I told him was that I had concerns about him being the homeschool representative to TSSAA when he wasn't a homeschooler. I tried to be gentle but he wasn't keen on my opinion. He stressed that he's studied this, that he is well acquainted with the feelings of homeschoolers due to his contacts with homeschoolers in his area, (he seemed to indicate they were close).  He said we needed to trust him. I said most of us didn't know him so trust would be difficult. If he could write up something explaining where he was coming from and what he hoped to do and sort of introduce himself that might be easier. He said he'd be glad to do this but not until April.  

I asked if there was some procedure for the rest of us to make comment so he could have a wider view of what folks wanted and needed--what our concerns were.  He gave me his e-mail address, again asking that I keep it private, and I have promised to send him subscription information and snips of comments from you.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Monday, 2/26/01 Mr. Bob Baldridge of TSSAA returned my call. He was very gracious. Took a lot of time with me. I felt like he listened to me. He patiently explained things I'm unfamiliar with.

TSSAA has had a standing study committee on homeschoolers for about 2 1/2

years which meets once or twice a year. Back then TSSAA saw that a surge of upper grade HSers was coming and they've been watching. There are no homeschoolers on this committee. The committee is made up of a mix of TSSAA folks and state educrats. 

Mr. Waley is not on the committee only a --I forget his exact word--but essentially a consultant, reference person.  Mr. Baldridge felt like Mr. Waley was someone representing the HS community that they could work with. I told Mr. Baldridge that I was concerned that Mr. Waley wasn't a HSer. That while his credentials in legislation may be wonderful  I thought, to start with,  a HS rep out to be a HSer.  He said--essentially, if not Mr. Waley WHO? Mr. Baldridge said he'd been looking for someone who could speak for homeschoolers. If not Mr. Waley WHO?

Mr. Baldridge said he has had a great deal of trouble finding consensus among homeschoolers which has hampered TSSAA from knowing exactly what to do. In conversations and letters with HSers there seem to be two camps—some who don't mind complying with rules and others who seem to think that they should pretty much have carte blanche [my word not his] without concern for the fairness of the situation. And they are apparently not always nice about it.  He spent some time talking about getting some pretty harsh notes and calls from HSers, many of which lack contact information. This  frustrates him because he can't address their issue without contact information. I apologized that this had been the case. I told him I wasn't like that. That I understood that if HSers wanted to play ball they were going to have to comply with some reasonable rules. That my concern was that HSers who chose not to play wouldn't come under additional regulation as a result.(Which I told him was not really an issue he had anything to do with.)

Mr. Baldridge said that 17 states have some sort of HS participation. TSSAA asked their members in a survey about 2 years ago if they were interested in HSers participating in TSSAA sports. 4% said yes--96% said NO. He said that something homeschoolers need to do is educate the educators. TSSAA is run by the schools he said. If we work toward educating them that would impact TSSAA's rules. 

Because I'm not into this athletic stuff I'm not exactly sure what the big deal is, hopefully one of you can clarify, but there seems to be a fundamental issue of fairness. Mr. Baldridge told me there were 394 registered private schools in Tennessee. Only 55 of them are TSSAA members.

There seems to be some concern that if we let HSers participate, outside of schools,  that some of the smaller schools will lose their team members to HSing and that will negatively impact the rest of those schools teams.

So after all that I asked Mr. Baldridge how we could participate in the rule making process. He said people are always welcome to write him letters. He would rather not get e-mails or phone calls. But he said every letter he gets he'll put in the file and consider. You'll remember to include your return address I'm sure.

Here's the address:
Home School Study Committee
Attn: Bob Baldridge
TSSAA
3333 Lebanon Road
Hermitage, TN 37206

Mr. Baldridge asked me to send him a copy of what I've just written about him. Which I'll do. Hopefully, if I've related anything incorrectly he'll correct me.

Kay Brooks
Kay@TnHomeEd.com
http://www.TnHomeEd.com
Tennessee's Homeschool Information Site