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Thursday, August 27, 1998
Home schooler lawsuit against UIL heads to
court
By CHIP BROWN AP Sports Writer
AUSTIN (AP) - If Corpus Christi home school student Amy Ensminger's
lawsuit against the University Interscholastic League is successful,
the makeup of high school extracurricular activities in Texas
could be forever changed.
She is suing the Corpus Christi Independent School District
and the UIL, seeking to be a member of the Corpus Christi Miller
High School softball team.
By not being allowed to play on a public high school team,
her chances for a college scholarship are being hurt, she contends.
The case will be heard in state district court in Austin on
Thursday.
With a nation-leading 150,000 home-school students in Texas,
UIL officials say it was inevitable that such a lawsuit would
be filed.
The case also comes after member schools of the UIL, which
governs sports, music and academic competitions, overwhelmingly
rejected allowing home-school students to participate by a margin
of 38-to-1.
The problem, UIL officials say, is that students in public
schools have to meet strict academic and residence requirements
and are limited in the number of hours they can practice or play
a sport during a season.
Home-schooled students are not.
Ensminger and her family have declined to discuss the lawsuit.
Her parents say only that they have chosen to teach their daughter
at home to provide a quality education in a religious environment.
They also have provided Stanford Test of Academic Skills scores
showing she scored well above average in reading, math and language
skills last year.
Ensminger has been a pitcher for a Corpus Christi club softball
team that won regional honors and traveled to the national fastpitch
championships last year.
"The rules set out by the UIL precluding students who
are home schooled, and Amy Ensminger in particular, from participating
in extracurricular activities do not serve a legitimate state
interest ... because all students benefit from being involved
in these extracurricular activities," Ensminger's attorneys,
Kim Cox and Scott M. Ellison, said in the lawsuit.
Tim Lambert, president of the Texas Home School Coalition,
said Ensminger should be allowed to participate in UIL softball
because extracurricular activities fall outside the academic mission
of a school. Home school families pay taxes just like every other
taxpayer, he said.
A Corpus Christi judge in February removed the case from his
court and said the proper jurisdiction was Travis County, where
all lawsuits against the UIL must be filed.
Farney said Ensminger is seeking to play for Miller High School,
where a number of teammates from a summer league team are playing,
even though she lives in the attendance zone of Corpus Christi
King High School.
Farney said allowing Ensminger to ignore the UIL's residency
rules, which strictly prohibit students from transferring from
one school to another for athletic purposes, would gut all UIL
guidelines.
He said enforcing academic standards in home schools would
be almost impossible.
"A lot of the UIL member schools just can't fathom a mother
or father of a home-school student saying their child has failed
chemistry and is not eligible to play Friday night," Farney
said.
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