(Photo from Tim Tebow's website)
- The Senate bill allowing homeschoolers participate in public school extracurricular activities died this week, but the House version remains alive even as lobbyist try to kill it yet again.
Over 30 states have some form of a “Tim Tebow” law, allowing homeschool students to participate in public school sports and extracurricular activities. Mississippi is currently not one of them.
There was hope early in the 2025 session that Mississippi lawmakers would see the benefit of passing such a law after nearly a decade of trying. After all, as advocates contend, homeschool parents pay the same local and state taxes as those who send their children to public school.
However, legislation has yet to find its way to the floor for a vote, with a deadline for action coming next week.
The Senate Education Committee killed its version of the ‘”Tim Tebow” Act on Monday. Chairman Dennis DeBar (R) failed to bring his bill forward for committee action. A request for comment as to why he allowed it to die has gone unanswered.
Over in the House, HB 1617, authored by Education Committee chairman Rob Roberson (R), remains alive, having passed out of committee last week. Yet, as of Friday, the measure has not been brought to the House floor for consideration by the body. Roberson told Magnolia Tribune it is still his intention to advance the legislation.
“I have every intention of bringing the bill out and have a good debate and pass it,” Roberson said.
Opposition from lobbyists
The lobby against the measure has ramped up in recent weeks.
The inaptly named Parents Campaign, included HB 1617 in one of its “alerts,” calling it a troublesome bill in the House. The lobbyists portrayed homeschool students as possibly gaming the system by dropping out of public school, staying at home, purchasing a “portfolio,” “and still take advantage of the rewarding activities public school students must earn.”
The opposing lobbyists went on to claim that the “Tim Tebow” Act creates an unlevel playing field for students and an enormous administrative burden for public schools, while creating “a new class of discrimination (homeschoolers).”
The Parents Campaign contends that when the legislation states, “In selecting the members of an interscholastic extracurricular team, a public school shall not discriminate against a student being educated in a homeschool…,” it gives “another unfair advantage to homeschool students over public school students.”
However, the House legislation specifically states that the homeschool students must “adhere to the same academic standards as other participants” while also complying with the same physical examination, immunization, insurance, age and semester eligibility requirements as other students participating in the extracurricular activity.
The legislation also states that the homeschool students would be allowed to participate in the public school extracurricular activities to which the student would be assigned according to the attendance policies adopted by the school board of the local school district. Homeschool students would pay any participation or activity fee in an amount equal to the fee charged to public school students.
Why it’s called the “Tim Tebow” Act
“Tim Tebow” laws are named after the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback who famously began his athletic journey as a homeschool student in Florida.
He was allowed to play public high school sports and excelled, leading his team to a state championship.
Tebow went on to play for the University of Florida where his team won the National Championship in 2006 and 2008. He was the first homeschooled athlete to win the Heisman Trophy.
Homeschooling in Mississippi
As previously reported, public school enrollment in Mississippi has dropped nearly 30,000, or 6.3 percent, from 466,002 students in the 2019-2020 school year to 436,523 in the 2023-2024 school year. At the same time, homeschooling in the Magnolia State has grown.
According to a Johns Hopkins School of Education report, there is limited data on homeschooling in Mississippi, particularly before 2016. Yet, estimates indicate that about 3.4 percent of Mississippi families homeschooled in the spring of 2020. The report shows that the percentage increased to 15.0 percent by the fall of 2020, about 4 percentage points more than the national average during the same period.
For the 2022 and 2023 school years, the Johns Hopkins report notes that estimates from the U.S. Census indicate that 5.5 percent of all K-12 students in Mississippi, on average, were homeschooled.
Frank Corder
