Under the law, full-time public school students will be given preference for academic courses, but ability will be a criterion in extracurricular activities. How school districts will be reimbursed by the state for costs of compliance is yet to be determined. And there are no estimates of how many students would be affected because there is no agency in Idaho that tracks students who are schooled at home. But there are questions of far greater import that remain to be answered, he said. Previous attempts to pass a dual-enrollment bill had been stymied in the Idaho Senate, but this year it passed easily.
Observers attribute the change, in part, to a more conservative political climate.
A precipitating factor, however, was a move on the part of the Idaho High School Activities Association to bar home-school students from participating in extracurricular activities. Before the association had a chance to adopt the policy, the legislature passed the law. The majority of such disputes, in fact, stem from prohibitions on participation by nonpublic students in extracurricular activities, especially interscholastic sports. In the past four months, Robert R. Waldo, a lawyer, has taken on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association on behalf of four home-school students who were barred from athletics. In all four cases, the court ruled that the students had been discriminated against and issued preliminary injunctions against the association, Mr. Waldo said.