This document discusses extracurricular activities in Illinois public schools. It defines extracurricular activities as activities outside the normal curriculum, such as debate clubs and sports, while co-curricular activities occur during class time like band or art. The document outlines the purposes and benefits of extracurricular activities, as well as issues around budgeting, staffing, and planning. It then discusses reforms to Illinois high schools and the public school choice program. Finally, it examines homeschooling laws and the ability of homeschoolers to participate in extracurricular activities.

1. Extra Curricular
Activities
Issues in Illinois Public Schools
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD

2. What is Extra Curricular Activities?
Extracurricular activities are activities
performed by students that fall outside the
realm of the normal curriculum of school or
university education.
 Debate clubs
 Sports
 Newspaper

3. What is Co –Curricular Activities?
Co-Curricular are activities that happens within
the during normal class time.
 Band
 Choir
 Drama
 Art
 Computers (Technology)

4. PURPOSE
Extracurricular activities are an intricate part
of education.
 Improves school’s performance
 Reduce grade retention
 Increase student attendance
 Interest in school
 Emotional Growth

5. BENEFITS
 Explore physical activities
 Social
 Political Interest
 Career Interest
 Students are more engaged in the
classroom
 Positive Support among peers and adult
staff

6. Issues of Extra Curricular Activities
 Budget
 Faculty (Staffing)
 Seek Volunteers or Local Colleges and
Universities
 Class Time
 Planning
 Evaluation

7. Issues in Illinois Public School
 High School Reform
 Home Schooling
Issues and Extra
Curricular Activities

8. High School Reform Issues
 Achievement is too low
 Making schools more accountable
 NCLB
 Government-driven, top-down
 High School is a bore
 Prevent drop outs
 Maximize completions by making the high school
experience more appealing
 Allow students to move at their own pace
 Recovery programs for drop outs

9. High School Reform II
 One size does not fit all
 Devise new institutional forms
 Using current technology
 Smaller Schools
 Give students a choice:
 high-tech schools, virtual high schools, charter schools, KIPP
 Courses are too easy and pointless
 Broaden access to Advanced Placement courses
 Strengthen state standards
 Revise textbooks
 Blend higher education’s expectations with modern jobs

10. Status of Reform in Illinois
 Governor Blagojevich signed legislation to
strengthen Illinois high schools by
increasing class requirement for graduation
 SB575, Higher Standards, Better Schools
plan and budget
 More foreign languages, arts, and music
 Training opportunities for career-track students
 Advanced Placement classes

11. Status of Reform
 Illinois Juniors take the PSAE
 ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education) adopted
rules that outline the standards for Illinois teacher
to become “highly qualified”
 CCSSO a five year collaborative project to
identify best practices that transform promising
schools to great high schools (funded by Bill and
Melinda Gates foundation)
 Project Lead the Way (PLTW): technology

12. Illinois Public School of Choice
 Provides option for students in schools that have
not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
 Gives students in schools identified in school
improvement the opportunity to attend a public
school that has made AYP in the same district
 NCLB Component

13. Homeschooling and The Law
 Compulsory attendance law
 New England colonies (17th Cent.)
 Requires public or approved non-public school attendance for children
ranging from ages five to sixteen in the area of education and public
schooling (Gordon, Russo, &Miles, 1994)
 Parental failure to comply with the law can result in criminal penalties
 Common School Movement
 Jorgenson (1987) defines as “a series of state movements occurring
roughly during the period 1830-1860”
 Government-differentiate
 Public
 Non-public

14. Landmark Decision I
 Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925)
 The Supreme Court clearly established that compulsory
attendance laws had to accommodate both public and non
public schooling
 Require all school aged children to attend only public school
 14th Amendment
 The statute infringed upon the rights of parents to choose schools
where their children received both an appropriate education and
religious training
 Court confirmed the right of individuals to establish and maintain
both private non-sectarian and private religious schools, and the
right of the state to require attendance at a school did not include
the include the right to preclude attendance at non public schools

15. Landmark Decision II
 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
 State control over education
 The court recognized the rights of devout Amish parents
not to send their children to school after the 8th Grade
 Parents were able to demonstrate that secondary schools
were in direct conflict with Amish beliefs in “cooperation,
piety, and simple, agrarian life style”
 The court reaffirming the State’s responsibility for the
education of its citizens, but used the Free Exercise
Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

16. Landmark Decision III
 Johnson v. Board of Education (1983)
 Refused an Amish Exception to Baptist who wished to
educate their children in their own schools staffed by non
certified teachers
 Baptist ministers argued that since they were
fundamentalists similar to the Amish
 Refused to grant them the same exemption would be
denial of equal protection
 The Eighth Circuit rejected their argument holding that,
unlike the Amish, these Baptist children lived in ordinary
residential neighborhoods interacting with others not of
their faith (Gordon, Russo, & Miles, 1994)

17. Landmark Decision IV
 People v. Levinson (1950)
 Illinois defining case for homeschoolers
 More liberal position on the spectrum of academic equivalence
 Parents of a seven year old girl were convicted of violating the
state’s compulsory attendance law
 Levinson appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court
 Evidence indicated that the mother had been teaching her daughter
at home for five hours a day and the child had demonstrated
“proficiency comparable with average third-grad students”
 The mother is the best teacher
 The education in competition with other students produces a
pugnacious character
 The Court did not believe that the home school parents had
violated the compulsory attendance law

18. Illinois Homeschooling Change
 Individual home schools may operate as private
or church schools
 Section 26-1 of the Illinois School code
 If a child is “attending a private or parochial school where
children are taught the branches of education taught to
children of corresponding age and grade in public school
 and where instruction is in the English language, the child
is in compliance with Illinois compulsory attendance law.

19. Home School and Extra Curriculum
Activities in Illinois
 Home school and Sports Participation
 Home school enjoys the same status as the public school
system
 Not all Illinois schools allow home schools to participate in
extra curriculum activities
 Home school are entitled to participate in any “for credit”
class that is offered by the public school
 The state’s interest in ensuring that all children have an
access to an education

20. Homeschoolers and Sports
Illinois High School Association (IHSA)
Interscholastic high school sports are guided by the IHSA,
which is an organization independent of the public
schools with its own rules
 Any school, public or private may belong
 May form its own teams to play in the IHSA
league (Home schools usually join with
neighborhood team or other home schools

21. Home Schooling
 Can not participate science fair
 Can participate in interscholastic high
school athletics
 Parents must make a request to the Chief
Education Officer
 Must meet the requirements determined
pursuant to the by laws of Illinois High School
Athletic Association and the Chicago Public High
School Athletic Association

22. REFERENCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracurricular_activities
Finn,C. E.,(2006). Things are Falling Apart, Education Next, pp. 1-2, Winter 2006
Smith, B.,(1998). It’s About Time: Opportunities to Learn in Chicago’s Elementary
Schools, Consortium on Chicago School Research, December 1998
http://wwww.illinoishouse.org/a09.htm
Buser, R.L. & Humm.W.L. (1980). Special Report on Cocurricular Offerings and
Participation, Springfield, 111.:Illinois State Board of Education, 1980.
http://www.cps.k12.il.us/About CPS/PressRelease/Septemer 2005/hs plan.htm
http://www.smallschool.cps.k12.il.us/grants/html

23. REFERENCES CONTINUE
 Lett, D. (1999). Home Schooling and the request
for access to public school extracurricular
activities: A Legal and Policy Study of Illinois (ED
450470).
 Gordon, W.M., Russo, C.J., &Miles, A.S. (1994).
The law of home schooling. Monograph of the
National Organization on Legal Problems of
Education.