A ruling this week by the Georgia High School Association has some area private schools calling “foul.”

The ruling restricts extracurricular activities to only those students who live in a private school's service area, which is now defined as the county where the school is situated.

If a student wants to participate in activities but does not live in the service area, the student must sit out one year before he or she can compete.

Late this week, Landmark Christian School, which is in Fairburn but draws a large percentage of its students from Coweta and Fayette counties, issued a statement on the ruling.

“Landmark Christian School does not consider the GHSA ruling restricting a private school's service area to only the county in which the school is located to be fair or reasonable,” the statement read.

The statement explained that families considering private schools are affected by the distance to the school from their homes, not which county the school is in.

“There presently are situations in public schools where the GHSA allows students to cross school district or county lines to attend public schools either nearer their homes or offering programs they desire. This situation is a double standard,” said the statement.

The statement closed by saying the ruling was “unfair to those students who move into a community and who wish to have the freedom to choose the private school closest totheir home.”

At the Heritage School in Newnan, headmaster Tom Hudgins said the ruling really doesn't apply to his school because it's not a member of GHSA.

But Hudgins finds it almost laughable that the ruling was supposedly done to “equalize” the playing field between private and public schools.

“To suggest we have an edge is pretty ludicrous. I can't imagine us playing Newnan or East Coweta and having an advantage,” he said.

Heritage left the GHSA nearly 18 months ago and belongs to the Georgia Independent School Association.

The ruling was spawned after Tom Murphy, speaker of the state House of Representatives, complained about Bremen High School having difficulty competing in debate tournaments against such private schools as Pace Academy.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page