The young chess players were the first such champions in Arizona.
By Ray Parker
The Arizona Republic
But a team of homeschool students from the southeast Valley, called the Chevalier Noir (Black Knight) Academy, was shut out last weekend from competing, not allowed to defend its title in the Arizona Scholastic Chess Championship held in Tucson.
State chess officials allowed the homeschool students to play as teams for two years because of changing or unclear national rules on the subject, but this year, they ruled team members must come from the same school.
“The tournaments were created and designed for school teams,” said Will Wharton, president of the Arizona Chess Federation board. “The problem is their connection is just chess, they’re not doing any schooling together.”Joan Harmonick, a home educator in Mesa, thought she had made progress with both the Arizona Chess Federation and the U.S. Chess Federation, the largest chess organization in the nation.
“I understand some of their concerns, but we were working with them and hoping they would broaden chess,” said Harmonick.
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