Homeschooling and Team Sports

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If you homeschooled or are currently homeschooling your children what did you do if your children were interested in playing sports?

We are in NY and I don’t believe our kids would be allowed to play on any teams offered by our local public school district. We are also not really interested in a high cost “elite” travel team. Our town offers limited recreational leagues and they are all coed, which we also don’t like.

I want to homeschool our kids but my husband doesn’t want them to miss out on sports if at all possible.
 
My kids are really little now. The oldest will start kindergarten in 2 1/2 years. We live in a rural area. There is a YMCA in the city I believe but that’s quite far from us.
I think my husband is concerned they will miss out on the team building he had in high school, but we both will not send our kids to public schools. It’s a tricky situation!

Thank you for the response and idea!
 
My little sisters did k12, and they played on our County’s recreational department soccer teams. I don’t know if everywhere has something like that, but that’s how they were able to, they had to play on different teams though.
 
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Some parishes used to have church leagues. Some public school districts allow homeschoolers to play sports. Our local Catholic school had one homeschooled young man on the soccer team. So, there may be options out there once you start looking. If sports is that important to your husband, you and he might feel the drive to the city is worth it.

AYSO soccer is co-ed only until 8th grade I believe. All three of my children enjoyed playing AYSO soccer because they got to meet kids from other schools. (Their Catholic school was very small) I don’t know your objections to co-ed sports, at a very young age it does not matter to kids. And if it is playing soccer that way or no way, you might want to reconsider. However, I totally understand separation at a later age, so please don’t think I am trying to criticize. 🙂
 
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I was going to chime in with something similar. A call to the Diocese would be worthwhile. Our Archdiocese has a program in which any Catholic kids can enroll through the nearest Catholic school. If you live in a small town, some sort of commuting is inevitable, unfortunately.

Alternatively, head to meetup(dot)com or Facebook, (if you use that - I don’t), and see if you can join or start a P.E. co-op. My kids were enrolled in one until COVID-19 broke out. Feel free to message me for details about how those run.
 
Y League sports, Pop Warner Football, Little League, Y Swim Team, there are many team sports available.
 
I’d suggest bowling personally. I went to public HS school In NY (4 years ago) and was captain of my varsity bowling team and was one of the best in my section and the state, won multiple $1000s for it and averaged 210. While that’s all school team stuff, I did leagues every year that were at different alleys and not through the school.

Those leagues could be an idea if you like bowling or know how to do it.
 
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I just looked up the law in NY and it says homeschool children are not “entitled” to play on public school teams. I was suprised because when I graduated, 11 years ago now 😦 , we had kids on our team that were homeschooled. That must not be the case now.

I can see both sides of the argument. I do wish that homeschool kids could at least try out for the teams though. We pay very high taxes in NY and the public schools here, even in small, rural towns here are so hostile to our morals we can’t in good conscience send our kids there.
 
Since your children haven’t started school yet, is there any chance of your family moving elsewhere? (FYI, originally from Long Island, myself.)
 
I don’t think we are likely to move. I guess we would have to if my husband lost his job and couldn’t get another one here. As much as we dislike some things about NY both our families are here and it would be very hard for me to be far from my mom.
 
You could contact the HSLDA, Homeschool Legal Defense Association; they may be able to provide more precise state-by-state answers.

We homeschool and ours have played or are playing little league, rec league/intramural soccer, travel soccer, and public school varsity sports, namely tennis, basketball, and soccer. I am in PA, and our school district is very friendly to homeschooling, I think because most of their recent experiences have been good. A homeschool student was the quarterback for a bit for the football team a few seasons back.

I live just over the NJ border and we have lots of folks who have moved from NY/NJ.

I do think it has been good for them, especially now the older ones, having to budget their time to get their work and chores done, and the discipline of training and practicing, the teamwork and team bonding, and not least the exercise.
 
My son (13) is uninterested in team sports — I’m pretty sure our state allows homeschool students to play on public school teams, but I’d have to look it up. His former Catholic school had at least one homeschooled student on their basketball team (parishioners’ son, he had gone to that school before they began homeschooling him).

We actually have a pretty decent PE class — bicycling, marksmanship (air rifles and pistols), golf, bowling, general fitness, and even dabbling in some sports using the Wii. PE is not at all difficult to incorporate into homeschooling, in fact, it’s one of the easier subjects to “retrofit” into a homeschool environment.
 
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My son and nephew were enrolled in tae kwon do when they were five years old and that was their PE throughout their entire schooling. My husband even got involved and ended up becoming an instructor and owning his own TKD school for a few years! They participated in tournaments and all achieved the rank of black belt (Hubby 5th degree, son 3rd degree, nephew 2nd degree). They found a school that focused more on discipline and self-defense rather than acquiring trophies and my husband continued that when he took over the school. Not sure what might be available in your area, but many martial arts disciplines have a program for preschool age children as well (ours was “Little Ninjas”.) Great exercise, team building, and life skills like discipline, goal-setting, focusing, etc.
 
I am sure that you will able to find them a way for them to play sports in a club outisde of team school if your children want them. (and ideally with the sports of their choice).

Homeschooling don’t mean that the children are not able to play any sport.

Sorry, as I am not in your area, I can’t offer practical advise.

Best to you for your planned homeschooling!
 
For a while where I grew up the home school kids had their own team for most sports that played against other schools (they tended to not be very good…). I don’t think it lasted and eventually homeschool kids could just try out for the public school team in the district where they lived. I remember homeschool kids showing up for tryouts when I was in high school. You should see if that is a possibility before dismissing it out of hand.
 
Your kids are very young. They may have zero interest in team sports, things don’t always go according to plan. Let the future take care of itself 🙂
 
Honestly, odds are it’s nothing that you’ll need to worry about until their freshman year. Most sports up until high school are all club, or run through Community Ed / Parks and Rec.

Have you called the local school district and actually asked if home school kids can play there?
 
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