Navigating School Decisions for Divorced Parents: Tips and Legal Insights

[00:00:00] Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I’m your host Jonathan Breeden.

[00:00:06] Jonathan Breeden: And on today’s episode we’re doing a special edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast which we call Ask Jonathan Anything and in this episode, we’re going to talk about How Child Custody Relates to Kids Going to School And How Children Interact.

[00:00:22] Jonathan Breeden: I guess, with their custody orders as it relates to schools and what the schools do when they’re handed a custody order. We’ll talk a little bit about that.

[00:00:30] Jonathan Breeden: Before we get to that, we’re going to ask you to like, subscribe, or follow this podcast wherever you’re seeing it, whether it be on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, or anywhere else so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of the Best Johnston County Podcast.

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[00:01:13] Jonathan Breeden: So Raina is here to ask us these questions. How are you Raena?

[00:01:16] Raena Burch: I’m doing good. How are you?

[00:01:17] Jonathan Breeden: All right, good. So.

[00:01:19] Raena Burch: I figured, you know, we’ve got school starting this week for a lot of our traditional calendar, you know, high schools and middle schools and elementary schools in both Wake and Johnston County.

[00:01:28] Raena Burch: So. We thought we’d talk about how custody agreements affect schools and school assignments.

[00:01:35] Jonathan Breeden: All right.

[00:01:36] Raena Burch: So first question, is there a general rule when it comes to school assignments during a divorce or after a divorce?

[00:01:44] Raena Burch: Do the kids stay in the same school? Do they go with the parent who gets the primary custody?

[00:01:48] Raena Burch: How does that work?

[00:01:49] Jonathan Breeden: You know, it’s ultimately up to the parents. If the parents can agree, you have to have an address for the children that they reside at [00:02:00] inside the school district to where they are, where the Children are districted in Johnston and Wake County’s in particular, because almost all the schools in Johnston are capped and almost all the schools in Wake County are capped.

[00:02:14] Jonathan Breeden: So you really struggle to get any kind of waiver that would allow you to attend the school where you do not already live.

[00:02:22] Jonathan Breeden: If you cannot agree most judges, particularly in a temporary custody situation, are gonna do everything in their power if they can to leave the children in the school where they are.

[00:02:32] Jonathan Breeden: If they find that’s in their best interest because school is a safe place for most children and when their parents’ marriages is falling apart, you know, they often don’t feel safe.

[00:02:43] Jonathan Breeden: Everything is sort of unnerving, things are not the way they were, they’re not seeing both parents every day. But they can go to school and see their teacher and their friends every day.

[00:02:51] Jonathan Breeden: And so everybody’s, I think, goal, most judges, if they can, would like to see the children’s schools, stay where they are and [00:03:00] stay with the feeder schools if they’re gonna be changing schools from primary to middle from middle to high school or whatever throughout the process.

[00:03:06] Jonathan Breeden: But you know that isn’t always the case and.

[00:03:10] Raena Burch: I mean I know from experience, it’s not fun to change schools between middle school and high school and you go to a new high school and you don’t know anybody.

[00:03:16] Jonathan Breeden: Right. And sometimes, you know, the parents can’t afford to stay in the school district and they both move out of the school district.

[00:03:23] Jonathan Breeden: And so you can probably finish the school year in that scenario. But I don’t know that they’re going to let you come back. If they know you’re living somewhere else. Given everything is capped, you know, the schools are really overcrowded.

[00:03:37] Jonathan Breeden: So, you know, it just kind of depends. I mean, it doesn’t have to be the primary custodian. It just has to be one of the parents living in that district.

[00:03:46] Jonathan Breeden: And then of course, if you’re not the parent in that district, if you’re not both in it, and you got the bus, then you ought to be able to get the children to and from school during your custodial time. And you know, people have to work.

[00:03:56] Jonathan Breeden: So that can be hard too.

[00:03:57] Raena Burch: Yep. Okay. So, if a [00:04:00] parent wants to change the school assignment for their kids, so say like one parent lives at one address and the other parent lives at the other address. And they want to change the school assignment.

[00:04:10] Raena Burch: Can they use the other address for the child? Even though maybe they’re both in the same county, but assigned to different schools.

[00:04:17] Raena Burch: Can they just switch between to the other parent’s address and send the kid to that school? Do they need to ask permission from the court or from the other parent? How does that work?

[00:04:25] Jonathan Breeden: No, I mean, I think if the parents agree, they can agree to enroll the child at whatever school they agree to using whichever address they would like to use.

[00:04:36] Jonathan Breeden: And I’ve seen parents use a grandparent’s address as well.

[00:04:41] Jonathan Breeden: You know, particularly if, you know, sometimes you move out of one home, you got to live with your parents for a while, you know, grandma’s in the district, you know, and mom’s staying there with grandma for a while and they enrolled a kid in that school and then mom moves out of that district.

[00:04:55] Jonathan Breeden: So, I mean, it really just depends. Sometimes the parents don’t agree where the kids go to school and we’ve [00:05:00] had those hearings as we record this in late August, we’ve been having those hearings this August and we have those hearings every August in July.

[00:05:08] Jonathan Breeden: And oftentimes, you know, we have the hearings don’t agree on which school this year, we going to ask the school districts.

[00:05:13] Jonathan Breeden: But, you know, the scenes of the hearings this year were kind of, you know, what type of school? Public charter or home school.

[00:05:23] Jonathan Breeden: And so, we have cases of move-ins this year where parents were disagreeing on whether it should, you know, which it should be.

[00:05:28] Jonathan Breeden: And the court had to decide which they thought was best for the children because they did not, the parents could not agree.

[00:05:35] Jonathan Breeden: So, you know, if you don’t have an agreement, you can file a custody action, and if you have a custody order, and it doesn’t address where the kids go to school, you can file a motion to go back and the school and the judge will pick where the child goes to school.

[00:05:46] Jonathan Breeden: I don’t think that’s ever best for kids because the judge doesn’t know you or your schedule or the kid or anything else, but if they don’t agree, you know, the judge will do it.

[00:05:55] Raena Burch: Yeah. Well, and I mean, what if the school’s capped? The judge can’t send a kid to a [00:06:00] school that doesn’t have space for them.

[00:06:01] Jonathan Breeden: Correct. The judge cannot send a kid into a capped school or they cannot send a kid to a school that’s not already districted to where it is.

[00:06:09] Jonathan Breeden: We’ve run into that many times, practicing law here in Johnston County where you got parents, we did one where you know, dad lived in Fuquay Verena and mom moved to Princeton.

[00:06:22] Jonathan Breeden: And what the parents wanted to do is put the kid at McGee’s Crossroads Elementary. Now the mom lived in Johnston County, but nobody lived in the McGee’s school district.

[00:06:30] Jonathan Breeden: And the school board attorney at the time, Jimmy Lawrence was like, no, we’re not doing that. And the judges know that they can’t do that. You know what I mean?

[00:06:39] Jonathan Breeden: So we ended up having a hearing and the judge decided the kid would go to Columbus Springs down there in Harnett County, right outside of Fuquay.

[00:06:47] Jonathan Breeden: The kid would go to that school where the kid had been going to school and mom would have to figure out how to get the kid from Princeton because she was the one that moved. But at that case, the mom was working in Fuquay, Verona.

[00:06:56] Jonathan Breeden: Anyway, It worked out fine. And [00:07:00] you know, she was with her boyfriend out there. Of course, that relationship didn’t last six months. Four school years over, Mom was back this way, so it happens.

[00:07:08] Jonathan Breeden: So that’s another reason why the court will try to keep the kids, you know, particularly if the other parent is, if it’s temporary or, you know, their living situation appears to be temporary.

[00:07:17] Jonathan Breeden: Live with my boyfriend, live with my new girlfriend. That’s temporary by nature. You know, let’s not uproot the kid if we can humanly help.

[00:07:23] Raena Burch: Oh yeah, no, absolutely not. Okay, so how should divorced parents handle school expenses like lunch money, field trip fees, yearbook costs, school supplies? Do judges generally want to, 50 50?

[00:07:38] Raena Burch: Is it included in child support? How does that work?

[00:07:40] Jonathan Breeden: You know, it depends, right? I mean, every judge does it differently. I think in general, the school expenses are often split. My experience with the lunch money in particular usually is whoever the custodial parent is that day covers the lunch money.

[00:07:56] Jonathan Breeden: That is part of feeding a child. And I [00:08:00] think child support covers feeding a child. And I think if you have the child, if it’s 50, 50, you pay your week, I pay my week kind of thing.

[00:08:09] Jonathan Breeden: When it comes to discretionary stuff like yearbooks because the other thing about lunch is the parent could make the lunch. You don’t have to buy the lunch for $4. And I think now a lot of schools, it’s free lunch for everybody.

[00:08:22] Raena Burch: Yeah, it was during COVID. I know that.

[00:08:24] Jonathan Breeden: Well, and they’re bringing it back in some of the counties to where it’s going to be free lunch for everybody.

[00:08:28] Jonathan Breeden: So that’s not as big a thing as it was in the past.

[00:08:31] Jonathan Breeden: You know, yearbooks, people often will split those. You know, extracurricular activities outside of school, parents usually split those, parents often usually whatever, you know, most judges will order the parents to split the uninsured copays on insurance, these sort of uninsured expenses.

[00:08:48] Jonathan Breeden: Now it isn’t always 50 50. Now, some cases one parent makes twice what the other parent made. Maybe it’ll be 66 33, something like that. But a lot of these expenses are fairly [00:09:00] or not a ton.

[00:09:01] Jonathan Breeden: So a lot of times people will split them. People often will split orthodontics bills you know, that kind of stuff.

[00:09:08] Raena Burch: So how should divorced parents go about communicating with the school and the teachers? Should they do it separately or together?

[00:09:16] Jonathan Breeden: I think it is better to do it together if possible. But there are a lot of unhealthy relationships out there. A lot of domestic violence. A lot of controlling abusive behavior by men and women.

[00:09:32] Jonathan Breeden: And so, that may not be a safe thing mentally, possibly a safe thing physically, for both parents in a relationship. But, if, let’s take away those sort of outliers where you have abuse or neglect, stuff like that.

[00:09:53] Jonathan Breeden: In most cases, if people are able to get along and communicate at some base level, I think it is [00:10:00] important that you communicate together if possible.

[00:10:04] Jonathan Breeden: Meaning, if I send the teacher an email, I should copy my spouse. And then the teacher could reply all back. And then we’re all dealing with the same information.

[00:10:15] Jonathan Breeden: Most schools, particularly with the elementary schools, use the class dojo app or something like that. Everybody can be on that. They can find out who’s bringing the cupcakes. They can see the pictures of the artwork, can find out when the school play is.

[00:10:30] Jonathan Breeden: You know, that kind of stuff, that information is available to everybody, if possible, I think it’d be great.

[00:10:36] Jonathan Breeden: And we do a parent-teacher conference in October, they do them every year at that near the end of the first grading period, you know, if the parents can go together, that would be great.

[00:10:44] Jonathan Breeden: Now, the school system will communicate with you separately. The school system will have separate parent-teacher conferences, the school system will send separate emails to the parents if that’s what needs to be done.

[00:10:57] Jonathan Breeden: In the vast majority of cases, both [00:11:00] parents have joint legal custody, which means they have to agree on you know, what kind of schooling the kid’s going to do, public, private, home, whatever, charter you know, they need to agree on major medical decisions when it comes to the child, things that would change the outward appearance.

[00:11:16] Jonathan Breeden: These are all things that are sort of in joint legal custody, including with the education, meaning that each parent should, if one parent gets their four cards, they should share it with the other parent. One parent gets notice that there’s going to be a play or a parent-teacher conversation shared with the other parent and the vast majority of parents do that.

[00:11:33] Jonathan Breeden: Unfortunately, not all parents are in that position but the school system is aware of that. And if you’re in that position, you can go and you can talk to the principal and you can tell him what’s going on and you can take him a copy of your order and they will communicate with you the way you want to be communicated and they’re going to communicate with him too.

[00:11:49] Jonathan Breeden: The one thing they can’t do is not tell the other side anything.

[00:11:54] Raena Burch: Yeah.

[00:11:55] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, if it’s a joint legal situation and if you don’t have any court order at all, [00:12:00] the presumption of the law is it’s joint legal. It’s only not joint legal if a judge says it’s so legal which is rare.

[00:12:07] Jonathan Breeden: So if you have no order and you’ve just separated or whatever, you cannot go down there and say the other parent can’t pick the child up. The other parent can’t talk to the teacher. The other parent can’t get the report card. That’s not going to work. Right?

[00:12:19] Jonathan Breeden: You have no more rights than anybody else, than the other parent. Now, the parents are gonna have to do something, right?

[00:12:25] Jonathan Breeden: What frustrates us here is sometimes our clients come and say, I can’t get any information from the school. And I’m like, have you reached out to them? Yes. Do they know who you are? No. Have you gone down and given them a copy of your driver’s license or your passport or any positive identification showing that you really are John Smith and you really are the parent, maybe a birth certificate, and you are the parent of Eric Smith?

[00:12:53] Jonathan Breeden: Well, no. Well, if you do that, I guarantee you, they’re going to communicate with you [00:13:00] unless there’s a court order that says the other side is sole legal custody.

[00:13:03] Jonathan Breeden: And in 95% of the ones where one side gets sole legal custody, which is extremely rare, the court will still give the non-legal parent access to the teachers and the school records.

[00:13:15] Jonathan Breeden: It is extremely rare. Like, 1,000 of a percent that a parent would not have access to the teachers or the records of their child’s education.

[00:13:27] Raena Burch: Got it. Okay. And like you said, if you’ve got a parent that maybe is controlling in the way that they try to limit whatever information you’re receiving, you can go straight to the school.

[00:13:40] Jonathan Breeden: Correct.

[00:13:40] Raena Burch: And just say, you know, send it to me directly because, you know, my co-parent is not co-parenting very well.

[00:13:45] Jonathan Breeden: Right. And you have to do it. And what’s frustrating us is sometimes parents will not do that. Like, they won’t actually go do what we’re telling them.

[00:13:55] Jonathan Breeden: Go to the school, give them a copy of your ID, make sure you prove to them that you are the parent [00:14:00] you say you are. You know, add your name to the emergency contact list. You know.

[00:14:04] Raena Burch: There’s nothing stopping them from helping you.

[00:14:06] Jonathan Breeden: Right. One of the most frustrating things that happens is when one parent enrolls the kid for school and they leaves off the other parent’s name, the other parent’s spouse, the other family is nobody. So.

[00:14:17] Raena Burch: No contact information.

[00:14:18] Jonathan Breeden: No contact. So we ended up in a custody situation and I get the school record and I’m looking and it’s like father and it’s Mom’s boyfriend or mom’s new husband, right? Emergency contacts. Mom’s boyfriend, Mom’s new husband. Mom’s mom mom’s sister, nowhere.

[00:14:35] Jonathan Breeden: Is it the father’s wife, father’s girlfriend, father’s mother, nothing? It is just one side to where that school doesn’t even know that other parent who exists.

[00:14:46] Jonathan Breeden: But you have to be proactive. If you’re a parent and you’re in a case where the other side is not going to give you information, or they’re going to actively try to keep you from gaining information, You’ve got to proactively go get it.

[00:14:57] Jonathan Breeden: You know, all these schools have websites, they [00:15:00] all have emails and now all the grades for the most part in the middle of the high schools are online. You get access to that. You can see the grades in real-time so that you can be a participant, but you’re going to have to make some effort to do it.

[00:15:14] Jonathan Breeden: It’s not just going to happen for you.

[00:15:17] Raena Burch: Yes. I totally get that. So, okay. Last question.

[00:15:21] Raena Burch: Do parents have to agree on those emergency contacts that they put down on their emergency contact list?

[00:15:26] Jonathan Breeden: I don’t. It would be nice. Yeah, you know what I’m saying?

[00:15:30] Jonathan Breeden: But they don’t always agree and that ends up being a problem and the school has to do the best it can and my experience is the school will take really, if many people’s you want to put down there.

[00:15:45] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, they’re going to be trying to get somebody who can help this child and they’re going to start with the parents because the parents are the ones who can sit the medical care, you know, these other people cannot.

[00:15:56] Jonathan Breeden: I mean they may be you know, and then the other fight that we always have is [00:16:00] who’s on the school pickup list?

[00:16:01] Jonathan Breeden: Who has the authority and to.

[00:16:04] Raena Burch: To temporarily gain custody of that child.

[00:16:06] Jonathan Breeden: Right. Is who could be on the pickup list and that’s a big fight and my experience is, the school system will allow if during your custodial time, you want to put somebody on the pickup list for your custodial time, most of the time, they’re fine with that and vice versa, but it’s amazing how many times somebody doesn’t want somebody.

[00:16:26] Jonathan Breeden: You know, often the moms will have primary custody, or at least we’ll be sort of in charge until we can get to court most of the time while we’re trying to work it out.

[00:16:36] Jonathan Breeden: And they’ll go down there and not want anybody connected to dad to be able to pick the child up and except for dad. But, you know, Dad’s got to work, so he needs his mom to do it. And so we get in a fight about that.

[00:16:47] Jonathan Breeden: I’ve had a hearing, I’ve had some hearings with judges, over who could be on the school pickup list before. It’s amazing, people would spend thousands of dollars for a hearing over who could pick the kid up at 3. 30 from the carpool line, but [00:17:00] people do it. It’s amazing to me.

[00:17:01] Raena Burch: I mean, if that’s where you want to put your money.

[00:17:03] Jonathan Breeden: If that’s where you want to put your money, I mean, it would be nice if they did agree. I do think that each parent during their custodial time, as long as they’re picking somebody who has a valid driver’s license.

[00:17:12] Jonathan Breeden: Don’t send somebody to have a valid driver’s license or who is not familiar with the child. You know what I mean? It needs to be somebody the child knows. They need to have a valid driver’s license. They need to have a safe working vehicle you know, these types of things.

[00:17:24] Raena Burch: Probably knows convictions or anything like that. It depends on what it is.

[00:17:28] Jonathan Breeden: Right. You don’t want it to be on the sex offender registry.

[00:17:30] Raena Burch: Yeah.

[00:17:30] Jonathan Breeden: I’ve had a few of those cases.

[00:17:31] Raena Burch: Oh, no.

[00:17:32] Jonathan Breeden: So, right. But they need to be familiar to the child and it probably should be limited if possible, you know what I mean? If you work in the afternoons, most times the child rides the bus, if you’re not able to go pick the child up, it really needs to be in a sort of an unusual situation or grandma, I’ve never seen a judge tell a grandma, they couldn’t be on the pickup list.

[00:17:49] Jonathan Breeden: You know, kids love grandmas, grandmas love kids. If one parent thinks that grandma should be able to do it, but of course then the ex-spouse or ex-partner hates grandma, [00:18:00] and it’s just trying to, you know, and the thing about it is fighting over stuff like that doesn’t actually accomplish anything, right?

[00:18:08] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, it’s so much better when parents can try to get along. And most of the time, they agree as to what should happen and where the kid could go to school. And most parents are happy with their schools, their child’s school, and the education they’re getting.

[00:18:21] Jonathan Breeden: And the teachers, we’ve got a good school system at Johnston Horn and Wake counties where we primarily practice.

[00:18:26] Jonathan Breeden: It really is unfortunately just a way to mess with the other side. You know, and the only person that actually is getting hurt is the child. And we try to get parents to agree. And it’s just sad.

[00:18:41] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, we’re trying to get kids into school, and we’ve got parents fighting us on getting a child into school because the child moved from one parent to the other parent’s home.

[00:18:51] Jonathan Breeden: And you know, that parent doesn’t want to agree for the child to change schools. And it’s just unfortunate like the child needs to get an education, but the parent wants [00:19:00] to put their pettiness and mad that they’re upsetting us that the child would change.

[00:19:06] Raena Burch: Yeah, or their convenience, the parents care more about their convenience than the child’s education.

[00:19:11] Raena Burch: I’ve had examples of that where it’s, you know, the higher rated school might be a little bit further away, but oh, the parents, oh, this one’s more convenient for me.

[00:19:20] Raena Burch: So we’re going to go with the lower-rated school. And it’s like, well.

[00:19:24] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, but the school ratings, I mean, that’s kind of, I don’t know.

[00:19:29] Jonathan Breeden: I think the school rating system is a little suspect because I think the school rating system is largely based on the population going to the school. It doesn’t absolutely tell you what you need to know about that school system moving any individual child forward.

[00:19:45] Jonathan Breeden: It is harder to move socioeconomically disadvantaged children because they’re not going home to stable homes. Maybe they don’t have food every night. Somebody’s not making sure they do their homework.

[00:19:56] Jonathan Breeden: They’re not making sure they go to bed on time. You know, I [00:20:00] don’t care how good a teacher you have. If that is a large portion of your school’s population. The school is not going to rate well on any scorecard.

[00:20:08] Jonathan Breeden: So I try to move away from the scorecards just personally, maybe because I grew up in what would be deemed the some of the worst public schools in North Carolina in Scotland County, and I got a very rural, a lot of socially economically oppressed area, a lot of people that didn’t have a whole lot doing the best they could do and I got a tremendous education.

[00:20:28] Jonathan Breeden: So I’m not a big person on you know, the ranking of the school. If you want to look at something, look at the growth, the expected growth numbers, right?

[00:20:37] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, that’s the thing where you’re trying to take similarly situated students and seeing if they’re able to move those versus the overall, you know, this school doesn’t do well and you look at it and 50% of the students are on pre-reduced lunch and they’re just, you know, they’re not going to come to school as ready to learn maybe as some other kids.

[00:20:56] Jonathan Breeden: So, I don’t know, that’s just my take. You know, I think people put too much [00:21:00] weight on those, you know, if you go to school and you feel comfortable, you know, people are going there and their kids are getting a good education.

[00:21:06] Jonathan Breeden: You know, I think that’s all that really matters.

[00:21:08] Raena Burch: Yeah. And I will, so when it comes to like the school pickup and the emergency contacts and whatnot, if there’s a, because I know this is becoming more and more common, an agreement between the parents that they won’t introduce their kids to any significant others for a certain amount of time, maybe it’s three months, maybe it’s six months I’ve heard up to a year, whatnot.

[00:21:27] Raena Burch: Don’t send those people to go pick up your kids.

[00:21:28] Jonathan Breeden: Right.

[00:21:29] Raena Burch: If it’s before that point in time.

[00:21:30] Jonathan Breeden: Right, if that’s part of your court order, and the person’s never met the child, then no, they wouldn’t be to go pick up the kid.

[00:21:35] Jonathan Breeden: But most judges are going to be like, you know, as long as these people are known to the child, grandma, whatever, you know, the courts, if it’s your time, I think the court would be fine with you appointing, whoever you want to pick up the child on your time.

[00:21:48] Jonathan Breeden: know, and if you don’t have any school days in your custodial schedule, then you’re probably not going to be able to add anybody other than yourself to the pickup list because otherwise the child wouldn’t be picked up.

[00:21:58] Raena Burch: Yeah. Well, [00:22:00] and unless there’s like I said, emergency situations where the other parent might need help.

[00:22:04] Jonathan Breeden: Correct.

[00:22:04] Raena Burch: Get it. That’s all we have.

[00:22:06] Jonathan Breeden: Well, cool. All right. Well, good. I hope y’all have enjoyed this special edition episode of the Best of Johnson County podcast, which we call Ask Jonathan Breeden Anything.

[00:22:16] Jonathan Breeden: Normally we do our podcast is where we interview interesting guests for the community leaders, local elected officials, and small business owners.

[00:22:23] Jonathan Breeden: And every once in a while we do one of these special episodes where I talk about family law, which is what we do here at the Breeden law office.

[00:22:29] Jonathan Breeden: So we hope you enjoyed this special edition episode.

[00:22:32] Jonathan Breeden: Please give us a five-star review if you enjoyed this podcast, also like subscribe or follow this podcast, so you’re made aware of future episodes of the Best Johnston County.

[00:22:39] Jonathan Breeden: Until next time I’m your host. Jonathan Breeden.