A small school is looking homeward bound to grow its sports programs.
Brant Christian School is inviting home-school students to play on the sports teams for the less than 20 Grade 10 to 12 students.
“This would allow us to grow our sports programs and it also gives those home school students the opportunity to be in more athletics,” said Brant Christian School principal Kevin Bailey.
“Being on sports team can help a student with commitment and about what it is like to be on a sports team.
“There are a wide variety of home school students out there.”
Brant is located approximately 12 kilometres east of Blackie, just outside the MD of Foothills.
The school had its first high school sports team when the Brant Eagles boys volleyball team finished fourth at the South zones in Lethbridge.
All seven high school-aged boys at Brant played on the team and all were from the Okotoks-High River area.
The volleyball team practiced twice a week, with a Friday afternoon practice at the Crescent Point Regional Field House.
Bailey said realistically, a home school student from the Okotoks area could make at least the practice at the field house.
He would like to see school sports grow to the point there are girls teams and junior varsity squads.
“This could also help us develop some of our junior varsity teams,” Bailey said.
“But again this is just another outlet for (home school) students to play sports. Let’s face it the Comp or HTA would be just too hard to step in and make one of their high school programs. For us, we are a 1A school (less than 100 students) the level of competition is lower and it’s a lower entry point.”
Bailey is looking towards the 2016-‘17 sports year.
Paul Byrne, principal Christ the Redeemer Catholic School’s Centre for Learning@Home, said he welcomes the idea.
“If kids want to play on a local team we support it,” Byrne said. “We have an agreement with the Alberta Schools Athletics Association where our students can participate on teams if kids are interested.
“If Brant School is willing to have our students on their team, awesome. That’s great. All this does is create opportunities for kids.”
CFL@Home has approximately 3,200 students across Alberta. Byrne said there have been home school students in the past compete on traditional school teams, particularly in the Grande Prairie area.
John Paton, executive director of the Alberta Schools Athletic Association, said there is some paperwork to be done, but Brant accepting home school students is a viable idea.
“Any home student that plays for them that are in the Brant Christian School district, all of the students from that school would be included in (Brant’s) count,” he explained.
For example, Brant which has an enrolment of 15 high school students, if it was to take a student from Okotoks who it is taking school through CFL, the number of students in the CFL area within the Brant Christian School jurisdiction would be part of Brant’s count.
Paton said he doubted if that would be enough to elevate Brant, which has an enrolment of 15 high school students, to 2A status (1 to 100 students).
“If they have 15 kids, Brant would need to have 85 kids who are taking home school through the school they are partnered with and they (the students) reside in the area,” he said.
He said that policy is in place to stop schools from recruiting outside of its jurisdiction.
Anyone with questions about athletics at Brant Christian School can contact Bailey at [email protected]
