HB503 Alabama 2014 Session

Existing law prevents a child instructed at home by a private tutor or church school to participate in extracurricular activities offered by public schools.

This bill would create the Equal Access to Athletics Act.

This bill would define the term extracurricular to mean school authorized athletics and athletic teams.

This bill would allow a student being taught at home by a private tutor or church school to participate in athletics and on athletic teams.

This bill would require participating students to adhere to the same requirements as public school students concerning activity fees, standards of behavior, responsibility, performance, conduct, academic standards, and residency requirements, except where contradictory to this bill.

This bill would specify that insurance coverage provided by a school board for participants in extracurricular activities would cover a child instructed at home by private tutor or under church school law.

This bill would also specify that no school team utilizing these students may be impeded from competing against any other public school team solely because of the participation of such students.

Amendment 621 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended, prohibits a general law whose purpose or effect would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds from becoming effective with regard to a local governmental entity without enactment by a 2/3 vote unless: it comes within one of a number of specified exceptions; it is approved by the affected entity; or the Legislature appropriates funds, or provides a local source of revenue, to the entity for the purpose.

The purpose or effect of this bill would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds within the meaning of the amendment. However, the bill does not require approval of a local governmental entity or enactment by a 2/3 vote to become effective because it comes within one of the specified exceptions contained in the amendment.

Relating to education; providing for the Equal Access to Athletics Act; permitting a child instructed at home either by a private tutor or under the church school law to participate in extracurricular activities in public schools; to provide certain requirements; to allow a student to participate in different extracurricular activities at the same public school; to provide for insurance coverage for extracurricular athletic activities; to clarify that students who participate under this act are considered enrolled for the purpose of attendance counts, school classification, and partial funding; and in connection therewith would have as its purpose or effect the requirement of a new or increased expenditure of local funds within the meaning of Amendment 621 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended.