The Warren County Board of Education approved a policy revision Tuesday allowing private school students to participate in public school sports if their current school does not offer the program.
Director of Schools Grant Swallows said the change aligns local policy with a new state law regarding interscholastic athletics. Swallows said the access applies specifically to students at independent schools with fewer than 200 students that are not members of the state associations.
“If a independent school here in Warren County had 150 students,” Swallows said, “They have a basketball team but they don’t have a softball team, and a student at that school wants to participate in interscholastic athletics, they would have the opportunity to try out for one of our teams.”
Swallows said the students would be treated similarly to homeschool students during the tryout process. Swallows said the policy is a direct result of legislation passed by the General Assembly.
“We’re basically taking that state law and making that into policy so that we can comply with that law,” Swallows said.
Swallows said the board utilized the Tennessee School Boards Association policy service to ensure the language met all legal requirements. Swallows said the board considered the revision on first and only reading to expedite the implementation.
“This is cleaning up our board policy around a new state law allowing students that are students at a private school or independent school and if their enrollment is less than 200, if they’re not already a TSSAA or a TMSAA member and that school doesn’t offer a sport and we do, that those students that would be interested would be treated like a homeschool student and would have the opportunity to try out at our schools for the various sports,” Swallows said.
Swallows said the district met with principals recently to discuss how various new policies would be implemented at the school level. Flowers said the athletic policy was one of several pressing updates required before the upcoming school year.