STRONG – A middle school soccer player was permitted to play on the Strong Elementary School team this year, though he began the season late.

Toby Logan, 13, said he wanted to be home-schooled this year because “school was kind of boring.”

“I got into the swing of summer and wanted to stay home,” he said in a recent interview.

When the school board approved Toby’s participation on Sept. 7, he was free to join his friends on the field the next day.

Though he missed a week and a half, Toby said he felt pretty good.

“I was kind of glad I hadn’t missed a lot,” he said.

So how does a soccer-playing home-schooler spend his days?

He usually gets to sleep in until 8 or 8:30, later than if he were going to school, he said. He and his father, Jim Logan, head to Farmington, where they usually spend time at the University of Maine library. There they work on grammar and history and his father gives him assignments for the day.

Jim Logan owns Twice Sold Tales in town and, while he works, his son hunkers down at a desk in the store room or in an easy chair surrounded by books.

The young Logan completes a couple of math assignments daily and, aptly enough, reads while at the bookstore. Currently, he is reading “David Copperfield.”

“It’s kind of challenging,” he said of Dickens’ novel.

His father also requires Toby to discuss his readings and answer questions about it. He will also be writing a research paper, he said, though he has not yet chosen a topic for it.

He will begin science studies with a tutor and works with a math tutor for three hours a week.

Toby said he likes soccer because he is better at it than other sports and he likes the teamwork. He generally plays defense. Since most of the two dozen other players prefer offense, he always gets to do what he likes, he said.

Jim Logan stumped SAD 58 school board members in August when he asked how they could provide for his son’s desire to continue playing soccer at the school even though he would not be enrolled there this year.

If home-schooling were the only issue, there would be no problem. A home-schooled student living in a school district is entitled to participate in school activities.

But Toby lives in Freeman Township, an unorganized territory that has no school board. Traditionally, tuition for students in unorganized territories is paid by the state to the chosen school. For Toby, it was Strong Elementary until this year.

With Toby not paying tuition and no school board from which to secure funding to pay partial tuition, the request was unusual and precedent-setting.

Because the issue was brought to the board at its Aug. 10 meeting and the superintendent and board could not reach a suitable solution, they “regrettably” had to prohibit Toby from participating until the issue was resolved. Soccer season began Aug. 31.

A funding solution was reached with the assistance of the superintendent of the unorganized territories, Richard Moreau, and district superintendent, Quenten Clark.

“It was kind of tense when we didn’t know what was happening,” said Toby of the waiting period.

“I didn’t know if I’d miss important things,” he said.

His reaction when his father gave him the good news: “I was happy and excited and I got my soccer stuff together,” he said.