Iowa Public Schools Must Allow Private School Kids to Participate in Public School Extracurricular Activities
What could possibly go wrong?
Iowa public schools are now required by state law to allow private school students to participate in public school activities. According to the Des Moines Register, private school students will be able participate in any public schools' sports programs under several guidelines, including if the student lives within the district or in a contiguous school district and if the private school has not offered that sport for the two previous years.
Here is the legislation.
The language is unclear whether it is only for sports, or for all school activities:
The board of directors of a school district shall allow a student who resides within the school district, and who is enrolled in a nonpublic school, to participate in any House File 189, p. 3 extracurricular interscholastic athletic contest or competition that is provided by the school district…
IPR suggests it is just sports.
Radio Iowa reports: The mandate in the bill also applies to other extracurricular activities. If the bill becomes law, private school students would have to be allowed to join competitive groups like show choirs or marching bands if their private school doesn’t offer it.”
My points hold regardless.
ESA’s have already seriously damaged the public school system in Iowa. Iowa Public Radio reports as of October of 2024, 36 new private schools had opened since the ESA voucher plan went into effect, and 16 public schools closed.
Randy Richardson at Bleeding Heartland documents some of the impacts in our larger communities:
Bettendorf, Burlington, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Dubuque, Johnston, Muscatine, Perry, and Sioux City all had enrollment declines of more than 100 students. At least some of that can be attributed to increased participation in the voucher program.
Davenport saw an enrollment loss of 2,041 students. That district competes with fourteen private schools. Johnston, which for years was a rapidly growing district, saw a decline of 509 students. That represents a loss of nearly $4 million in state aid. Johnston competes with 22 private schools. Competition for students is particularly intense in the Des Moines metro. The Des Moines school district loses students to 32 private schools, while several suburban districts, in addition to Johnston, face competition from over 20 private schools.
Many rural schools with no nearby private schools have not been negatively impacted.
Iowa Democratic Representative Heather Matson tells the Iowa Starting Line that Iowa’s public schools are in “survival mode,” and that she worries about the “possible fiscal and logistical implications” of public schools being required to allow private school students to participate in public school activities.
One concern is this unfunded mandate might require more staff, equipment, and other infrastructure for public schools.
Students at every one of the new 36 plus private schools will be eligible to participate in nearby public school programs as none of these schools have sponsored activities previously.
This means that there will be no need for those private schools to invest in, for example, football fields and other infrastructure, or coaching staff for any extracurricular activities. The public schools will bear that burden, while the private schools can direct funding other directions. Remember, these are our tax dollars and there is no public accountability as to how these funds are spent by private schools.
Many private religious schools will also see their student’s participation in public school activites as “mission work,” to convert public school students to the private school’s faith, and an opportunity to recruit public school students to their private school. This will likely build resentment and possible conflict.
There will be social consequences for both the public and private school students. The school students attend and the activities they pursue helps them create their identities—who they are and how they fit in the world. Ideally, students are proud of their schools and value the team building and other bonds that they build at school during this important stage of their lives as they compete under the banner of their school totem or mascot.
Every school has a culture, and is a community that a student belongs to, populated with their friends, other students, and school staff that they interact with each other for at least seven hours a day or longer.
In some districts the same families have attended those schools for generations, and have participated in and supported those activites, along with their friends and families. There commitment to the school is strong and transcends generations.
But now, a private school kid, a non-participant in the public school culture, with no ties or commitment to the public school can come in and theoretically fill a roster spot on a team, benching a public school kid who has dreamed his entire life of playing varsity. That private school kid is, on day one, not a member of that community, and the potential for conflict is there.
The new kid is, by definition, an interloper—a person who becomes involved in a place or situation where they may not be wanted or are considered not to belong. Hopefully, everyone gets along, but the probabilty of conflict is high.
Public school social networks were likely formed for many years—even generations—before the new private school students came to participate, making it difficult for them to truly belong, but there are also other serious implications.
As an example, consider an outstanding private school athlete who earns the starting quarterback position over a popular public school kid who has worked within the school system and its culture his entire life to earn that position, only to have it taken away by someone from another school.
While the students may be able to work it out, will the parents? Will the Dad who was the star football player at that school a generation ago be quiet when a private school kid with no commitment to the public school benches his son?
Or consider the private school girl with the beautiful voice who earns the lead role in the public school musical. Will that be accepted by the students and parents? I speak from experience that public school musical theater mothers in particular will not be happy with this situation.
Since there is no income limit to receive ESA funding to go to a private school, the family of the kid coming from the private school may have been wealthy enough to afford participation in costly club sports where the family of the public school kid had no such resources.
Or the girl who has taken the lead role in the musical may have had the family resources to have had voice lessons, where the public school girls have not.
Wealthier private school students, with no emotional or few personal ties to the public school will be at a clear advantage, building resentment.
Thanks to our Republican legislature, private schools already have the advantage over public schools. They pick their students, and now they can pick the public school activities their private school students can participate in.
Private schools are already freeloaders using public monies for private purposes, and now they are freeloading on our public schools to provide services for their private school students, where public schools bear the burden of constructing the physical and human infrastructure to make it happen.
An interesting irony exists here. Elected Republicans across the land have blown up the near non-existent threat of trans individuals taking roster spots/competing in women’s sports. Contrastingly, the probablity of a private school girl taking a roster spot from a public school girl in Iowa is exponentially higher and a real concern.
To be clear, I have no problem with religious private schools. I do have a problem with using taxpayer dollars to fund them. Below is what the Iowa Constitution has to say about the subject in Article 1, The Bill of Rights:
I have no doubt that Iowa’s private school leaders, teachers, and students believe that what they are doing is a good thing.
It’s not. Make no mistake, while well intentioned, they are foot soldiers in an effort to turn our democracy into an authoritarian white nationalist theocracy.
Maybe the most important foot soldiers of all, even if unwittingly.
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The long game being played here is the defunding and ultimate killing of public school education. Starve the public schools of their revenue first, then increase their expense structure, bully the staff and teachers till they quit, and foment discontent amongst parents utilizing public schools.
Then, as the walls crumble, penalize them with greater oversight and resulting cost increases. As programs deteriorate further and are shuttered, more kids go toward private schools.
The parochial education, controlled by a legislature rather than an educator, then creates a compliant populace.
Thanks, Bob. Your column is so clear. The heart of a community is its school. Its destruction is part of the plan to bring privatization to all things. It will bring devastating loss to communities and families if we don’t stop it.