Missouri’s homeschool families may soon be able to access public school sports programs and after school activities their taxes help pay for under legislation pre-filed in the state Senate last month.

Washington Republican Sen. Ben Brown pre-filed legislation in late December that mirrors in part a bill he introduced last session that would grant access for homeschool families to public school sports and extracurricular programs, the Missouri Independent reports.

“As a former athlete myself whose childhood was greatly impacted by my participation in the sport of wrestling, I feel strongly that it is wrong to deny these potentially life-changing opportunities to children,” Brown said during a committee meeting in March.

While the Missouri State High School Activities Association permits homeschooled students to participate in their local public school’s sports programs if they’re enrolled in at least one credit hour of instruction, state law allows school districts to block participation.

The issue is important because Missouri’s homeschooling rate is growing faster than the national average, hitting nearly 10% of all students in the state during the 2023-24 school year, up from an estimated 5.6% in the 2020-21 school year. Nationally, just under 6% of students were homeschooled this year, a figure that has declined from 7.1% in the 2020-21 school year, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Brown’s legislation, Senate Bill 819, would ban schools from requiring enrollment to participate, though it allows for training required for a club or sport to remain. The bill he introduced last year, which cleared the Senate but was never debated on the House floor, was also expanded for 2024 to rescind authority for attendance officers to investigate homeschooling families and wording in state statute that those families “may provide” notice of intent to homeschool to local officials.

“There just doesn’t need to be that level of scrutiny,” Kim Quon, regional director with Families for Home Education, told The Independent.

Quon believes Brown’s bill will benefit students who do not live near the state’s major cities the most, citing limited options for sports beyond public schools in more rural areas.

“It’s all about equal access and equal opportunity,” Donna Myers, a mother of eight homeschooled children, told KMBC. “And right now as a homeschooler, we don’t have equal access or equal opportunity. And it’s pretty unfair.”

“I’m a big advocate for my children being able to access school sports through the school district we belong to,” she said.

Derrick Myers, a homeschooled freshman from Blue Springs, told the news site he’d like to participate in track, if given the opportunity.

“Sports is like, I’m not allowed to do it, but if I could do it, I would be like yeah, dream come true,” he said. “I think we should be given a chance, because we pay taxes.”

The legislation is expected to face resistance from at least some in the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Kansas City Democratic Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern told The Independent she’s concerned SB 819 would lead to the government “simply not knowing which students are being homeschooled.”

“It’s imperative … that when parents make the decision to homeschool their child, we have some reporting procedures in place so that we know which students are actually being homeschooled,” she said.

While Missouri’s homeschool families are required to track hours of instruction to comply with the state’s compulsory attendance law, those figures are not submitted to the state because “it’s not anybody’s business,” Quon said.