Pennsylvania allowing more private school children to play interscholastic sports

Students at certain private schools in Pennsylvania will soon have new athletic opportunities. 

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) has begrudgingly approved a policy letting students of faith-based private schools play sports for their home public-school district if their own school doesn’t offer that sport, according to TribLive. 

The rule change, effective immediately, came after a federal lawsuit filed by the Religious Rights Foundation of Pennsylvania, which argued the previous policy violated the constitutional rights of religious students. 

Under the agreement, the new policy applies only to faith-based schools — defined as “a Pennsylvania nonpublic school that integrates religious beliefs into their educational programs and activities.” Students at other private schools remain ineligible to join their public school’s athletic programs. 

Moreover, the PIAA made it clear it would accommodate faith-based students only to the minimum extent required by the court settlement. 

“The PIAA board chose not to expand the policy beyond what specifically was requested in the settled lawsuit,” executive director Bob Lombardi said. 

In fact, the PIAA has tried to sway faith-based schools to consider forming cooperative teams with nearby schools instead of sending athletes back to their home districts. 

“We would monitor that to see if that is actually happening,” Lombardi said. “If there is, maybe the board will revisit this and have some other type of amendment to it.” 

The Religious Rights Foundation filed its lawsuit in July, arguing charter school students already could play sports at their home public districts while faith-based private school students could not. The case was supported by attorneys from the Thomas More Society, which won a similar case against the State College Area School District two years earlier. 

The case is a wakeup call for parents of faith-based schoolkids: If your local public school allows athletic participation by students from other schools but not faith-based ones, it’s quite possibly illegal. 

Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in several cases that governments can’t withhold public benefits to people or organizations based on their religious beliefs. 

The Pennsylvania change comes as Florida enacted a similar expansion earlier this year. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation on May 21 strengthening the state’s “Tim Tebow law,” which previously only applied to homeschooled students. 

The new law now lets private school students join public-school sports teams when their own schools don’t offer a certain sport, broadening athletic options for thousands of children across the state. 

“The best thing we can do for our kids is to give them options to play in sports,” Peter Boulware, founder of Community Leadership Academy in Tallahassee, told WCTV in February. 

“Get them involved, get them playing, get them in something,” he added. “The more we can do that, the opportunities we can give our students, the better we can make our students.”