SOUTH DEERFIELD — After hearing from more than a dozen speakers Tuesday night, as well as submitted written comments, Frontier Regional School’s policy regarding homeschooler participation in extracurricular activities will remain the same.

Following more than an hour and a half of public comments and discussion, the Frontier Regional School Committee opted against adopting a policy that would have excluded home-schooled students from extracurricular activities in a 7-3 vote. There are currently 25 home-schooled students from the four towns and two are participating in fall programs.

Currently, the district’s home-schooling policy, contained in section IHBG in the policy manual, reads “a student being educated in a home-based program within the district may have access to public school activities of either a curricular or extracurricular nature upon approval of the superintendent.” The proposed policy amendment, which underwent a first reading by the Committee in September, would have stricken that line.

Approximately 20 people showed up to the Tuesday meeting, as parents and students alike said removing the opportunity for home-schooled students to participate in activities like sports or theater programs would take away chances for students to socialize and connect with peers.

Speaking to the School Committee, David Tuesca, a home-school student on Frontier’s football team, said athletics are a chance for him to spend time with his friends. It should be noted that even if the amended policy was approved, current home-school students would have been grandfathered in.

“I love trying new things and this year I tried baseball and football for the first time and quickly fell in love with both … For me, playing sports is the highlight of my day and spending time with my friends makes it even better,” said Tuesca, who was wearing his football jersey. “If this policy change is implemented, I will no longer be able to participate in football – or hockey coming up – and I don’t want to lose the opportunity to be a part of my team with my friends.”

Sixteen members of the Deerfield Inclusion Group also sent in a letter expressing opposition to the proposed policy change, which was read aloud by member Suzanne Ryan.

“We find it concerning that under this new proposed policy, the Union 38 home-school population would be denied access to extracurricular activities for connection, socialization, physical and mental health,” Ryan said. “We see no reason why these children should no longer be allowed access to this opportunity and we believe this deserves further consideration and input from the families most impacted.”

Frontier Regional and Union 38 School District Superintendent Darius Modestow said the proposed policy change was brought forward to spark a “healthy discussion” about solidifying the line between home-schooled students and those that attend the school, especially when it comes to student expectations and how they represent the school, as fields or the theater stage are “an extension of our classroom.”

Modestow said home-schooled students are also excluded from the district’s foundation budget when it comes to the state’s funding formula and there are additional administrative oversight challenges for students “who are not part of the community on a day-to-day basis.”

He likened the existing policy to an a la carte system, where families could pick and choose which parts of the Frontier experience they wanted. Additionally, he said there is really no other situation where “you have people dropping in to participate” in extracurricular activities.

“It is a choice, just like it’s a choice to go to a charter school, just like it’s a choice to go to a private school,” Modestow said, emphasizing he respects the rights of families that choose to homeschool their kids. “You’re asking for a different setup than what’s being offered at Frontier in the Frontier package. The question before the committee is, can you pick and choose portions of the Frontier package, or is it considered all-for-one?”

The answer to that question, at least from a majority of the committee, was that they were OK with allowing home-schooled students to participate. For Committee member Philip Kantor, who is from Conway, he said he gets the desire for “clear lines, but it’s human beings and it’s messy.”

“Yes, the commonwealth of Massachusetts is essentially an unreliable partner; yes, there are inequities and unfairness with regards to charters, private [schools] and whatever,” Kantor said, referring to Modestow’s point about funding and the general vagueness about the intersection of home- and public-schooling. “We can still try to be as fair as we can be to the group of people that would be affected by this policy, despite all of those things.”

Fellow Committee member Jessica Corwin, of Sunderland, said the policy change “feels like a solution in search of a problem.”

“We don’t have an issue that needs to be resolved by passing this,” she said. “If we pass this, we’ll be the second district in the state [to pass this type of policy], which makes us statewide leaders in exclusionary practices. That’s not a distinction I want us to have.”

Ultimately, the Committee voted 7-3 to table the matter and send it back to the Policy Subcommittee for further review. The Greenfield School Committee went through a similar discussion in March 2023 and voted to allow homeschoolers to participate in extracurricular activities.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.