Charter School Student Participation in Traditional School District Extracurricular Activities

Ohio law allows for public charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at their local traditional public school district. The language allowing this was included in House Bill 487, enacted in 2014, and can be found in Ohio Revised Code Section 3313.537.

This change affects students of any public charter school (also called a community school), including eSchools or online schools.* These students are now able to participate in activities, including sports, at the local school district they would attend if they did not choose to attend a public online charter school.

Extracurricular activity is defined in the Ohio Revised Code language below and it does include athletics as long as the student is participating in the school district that they are entitled to attend.

If you or any school district personnel ever have any questions, contact us at 1-866-285-6216 or Info@OhioeSchoolCoalition.org. We will help in whatever way possible.

*Note: True homeschool students (those who school at home but are NOT enrolled in a community school of any kind) are also eligible to participate in district extracurricular activities however the state law section and the legislation that passed to allow this are different than that mentioned here). There can be some confusion because many eSchool families will call themselves homeschool families because even though they are enrolled in a public community or charter school they technically go to school at home. That is why we included this note of clarification.