On April 14, 2016, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed HB 7029 into law. The bill was a sweeping education bill that allows parents to send their children to schools outside of their county boundaries.
So, a child in Duval County could attend school in St. Johns County, and vice versa. Parents are allowed to send their student to any public school in the state.
The bill takes effect in the 2017-2018 school year.
There are, however, a few stipulations: the new school must have room to accommodate the student, parents must provide transportation, and the student cannot be under an expulsion or suspension order.
How will this affect you or your child, particularly in sports?
For starters, having the choice of where you attend school is a good thing. If a child is not getting the adequate education they need, they should absolutely be allowed to switch to find a school better suited to their needs.
However, critics of the law say that allowing students to switch will disrupt school planning, making it more difficult for teachers and administrators to prepare for the upcoming years.
Also, the school choice is only an option to students whose parents can provide transportation, which excludes a lot of students who probably would benefit from switching schools.
Some schools may end up losing a lot of students. However, some say that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
If a school is losing a significant number of students, that means that clearly the standards are not up to par, and something needs to be changed.
As far as athletics are concerned, the law states that high school students who transfer will be immediately eligible to play sports, as long as they aren’t playing the same sport at two different schools in a single school year. So, you can’t switch schools during baseball season and play baseball at your previous school and your new school, for instance.
This worries some coaches. They fear that students will switch schools for athletic reasons and not academic reasons, and this will lead to hyper-dominant programs at some schools, and extremely weak ones at other schools.
However, if an athlete doesn’t get along with the coaching staff or their teammates, or the staff changes, the bill allows them a fresh start somewhere else.
As much as everybody in high school sports hates the “R” word, this bill will effectively begin recruiting.
High-profile athletes with the means to switch will begin looking at schools with better programs to get them more exposure to colleges, and more wins.
Overall, the bill may not even have much of an impact. Colorado has had open-enrollment across the state for over ten years, and only 10% of its students attend school outside their home district.
The argument could be made that high school football is bigger in the south, but nevertheless, we will have to wait and see how many students actually take advantage of the provisions of the bill.
ITG Web Content
School Choice: What You Need To Know
Written by Kim Hoy
Photo by www.flgov.smugmug.com
