SAUGUS — Home-schooled students may soon be allowed to participate in Saugus High athletics and other extracurricular activities.
“I couldn’t find one other district in the area besides Saugus that didn’t allow it,” said Jeannie Meredith, chairwoman of the School Committee.
The policy subcommittee is recommending a change in the current policy’s language that would allow home-schooled students to join in on activities in the district. A separate recommendation is to allow the students to participate in athletics.
“The way our policy exists, if a child is home schooled, they cannot participate in extracurricular activities at all,” said Meredith.” All the research that I’ve looked at — and common sense — supports that any social interaction for kids is beneficial. We wouldn’t want to hold these kids back from being socialized.”
The language in the policy on home schooling reads”home-schooled students are not enrolled in the Saugus Public Schools, and have, in fact, expressly sought permission to withdraw from the public school program. Therefore, home-schooled students are not eligible to participate in extracurricular and athletic programs.”
The proposal is to change “are not eligible” to “may be eligible.”
Interscholastic students can participate in athletics at the discretion of the School Committee, which Meredith argued should not be the policy.
“I don’t think the School Committee or any elected officials should ever have a role in this,” she said in a policy subcommittee meeting last week. “Politics should not play a role in this.”
Instead, the subcommittee is suggesting it be left to the discretion of the principal and superintendent.
The district’s new athletic director, Terri Pillsbury, said when she worked in Norton, the district adopted a similar policy. Oftentimes, children who don’t go to school in the district aren’t interested in participating.
“In three years, we had one kid (join) for one season,” she said. “You’re talking about the minority.”
Meredith and Linda Gaieski, who chairs the policy subcommittee, will make the recommendation to the full board on Nov. 15.
