[Brian Selle]

Last year I asked the school administration if a kid from a neighboring private school could join our team. I was very surprised to hear the answer was no. I was thinking this family pays the same taxes I do and would thus be granted the same opportunities.

Unfortunately, this issue lands in a legal quagmire. While families do have a constitutional right to send their kids to a private school or homeschool them, they are not guaranteed equal access to the public school. Each state handles it differently... there are 10 states that do grant equal access (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) but for the other 40 (including Texas), it's typically left up to the individual school districts.

My hope is that more and more states will soon be joining the equal access side, but for now the best path is probably to understand why your district is opposed to allowing other kids participate and then propose measures that will ease their concerns.

Public school access by state:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issue...ual_Access.pdf