Twelve-year-old George Fisher won first place in a North Island school mountain biking competition but was denied the medal because he is homeschooled—a policy enforced by School Sport New Zealand, which only awards medals to students enrolled in registered schools.
The incident has sparked criticism from homeschooling parents and advocates like Home School Sports Association chair Mel Ewart, who argue the rules unfairly exclude homeschooled students despite them being recognized as full-time students by the Ministry of Education.
Ewart dismissed claims that homeschoolers have an unfair training advantage and pointed to school-based sports academies as offering their own benefits. School Sport NZ, currently reviewing its regulations, said homeschooled students can participate in most events but not championship-level competitions unless enrolled in a “recognised school”.
Poor kid. This really stinks and you have to question the bias,. Ours is home schooled too and a top student academically. No one discriminates against her, refusing awards, etc for academic excellence. Why should his boy be any different?
So much for equal rights. This is beyond disgusting. How did enter the competition then? Seems like only an issue because he won.
We home-schooled our Aspie because the MoE refused to start an IEP, or recognise the condition.
In addition, there was biased scrutiny towards us as parents and bullying at the school level targeting our child, who suffered several assaults while at school.
Pre-school in North Canterbury was even worse..! We discovered that the PTB were attempting to remove our child from us, and we all knows what happens afterwards in ‘foster (paedophile) care’…!
We received our Homeschooling Exemption in only 5 days, as they wanted us to ‘go away quickly’ based on what we discovered in the records.
NEVER ask for help from the MoE, MoH and the SLT, especially in Rangiora!!!
Home-school your children, even if they don’t have a disability or are ‘neuro-diverse’..!
The discrimination is obvious in this quote from RNZ https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/559030/student-not-given-medal-due-to-being-homeschooled
“Home School Sports Association chairperson Mel Ewart said it happened more than people realised. “It’s sort of a hidden secret in sporting circles that in student sports, homeschool students at the secondary age level aren’t allowed to compete.””
If the Ministry of Education intends to unfairly discriminate from the very beginning, then why do they charge the same entry fee to those they discriminate against? They should surely be transparent, open and fully honest about their discrimination.
LoL when you read the full state media news story about this they try to complain that he has some sort of unfair advantage being homeschooled, as if he’s probably just some blithering, unschooled idiot who just rides a bike all day. I wonder what their excuses would be when he smokes all the other students in every other academic subject you could compare them against?
I decided to forward this article and the comments to Erica Stanford…
If she doesn’t know about this practice of discrimination, she does now!!!
Also, hopefully the parents of the home-schooled child will also file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
https://tikatangata.org.nz/
Home schooling is the opportunity to exit your children from the state indoctrinating camps and its influence over your family.
Once removed, why stay involved with these camps and their activities?
You should create your own sports and other events amongst your home school community. Be like the Amish.