Hi all, anyone know if the JTP requirement that all K-12 students be from the same school (a separate K-3 event need not observe this) is satisfied if they are all homeschoolers attending the same chess class? As a second and narrower question, what if they were all from the same family? Thanks for your insights!
Ben
I don’t know if this question has been asked before.
I suggest you contact the USCF’s scholastic director, Jerry Nash, jnash@uschess.org.
They have to be all from the same school that is the affiliate. I don’t know if after school chess programs can get a school affiliate, or a family homeschool group.
Alex Relyea
I have done as you suggested - thanks.
Edit: - He has since informed me that this does not fall within his sphere of authority/knowledge.
That probably means it needs to get kicked up to Pat Smith, Bill Hall, the Scholastic Council or even higher authority.
The scholastic regulations allow ‘virtual school teams’, it might be sufficiently consistent with that to allow a homeschool group that would be eligible to form such a team to also have a scholastic affiliate, as long as any given student is (still) only eligible to compete in K-12 JTP membership exempt events for just one scholastic affiliate, since the purpose for the K-12 JTP events is to encourage schools to run in-school events for THEIR students (such as to give them practice at playing in rated events and/or get them ratings ahead of the deadlines for events, such as the spring nationals), not to run public events or ones involving more than one school.
The web grows in many homeschools, as many homeschool students in reality attend
more than one homeschool group, depending on the type of studies offered. In addition, some homeschoolers also attend public school for courses such as chemistry, etc. The boundaries seem to be growing for exactly what constitutes a “school”.
Rob Jones
This is an increasing and changing dynamic. That is, the emergence of home school,
“after-market” education centers, weekend schools catering to primarily specific
cultural groups and religious groups, etc.
The question is will the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of USCF for these
groups match their growth??
The point is, the boundaries of “what constitutes a school” simply must be broadened
to include these growing educational institutions.
Let us first fact the fact that most schools have no chess programs whatsoever. Now,
we as a federation can say, well the answer is for them to create these programs. Well,
this is all fine and dandy. I would suggest a far more reasonable approach would be
to accept in our scholastic midst those “alternative” programs which already exist,
and with this acceptance the attendance of potentially hundreds of new players
at our national scholastics.
As Kevin Bachler in other postings has so well stated, teams are what brings the
majority of kids to scholastic events.
The argument that it is not “fair” that a few have a choice of which team to play
for, their “key” school, or the “after-market” school, is tired. For what is far more
important is that more kids simply get the play and even know of the opportunities
because of the involvement of their chess teams.
Rob Jones