School Designation and Enrollment Authority Florida Divorce

Best Florida Family Law Podcast By Jacobs Law Firm

Welcome again to the best Florida family law podcast. This is attorney Jonathan Jacobs of the Jacobs law firm. I'm so glad to be here with you today to talk about one of the top issues, one of the most important issues in all family law cases involving minor children, which parent or both will have school designation and enrollment authority. Let's make a very clear distinction.

Having shared parental responsibility over academic decisions is not always the same thing as having school designation and enrollment authority. Academic issues such as having an IEP, having a specific plan for performance, extra time to take tests, tutoring, after school care, things of this nature relating to academics, those are academic decisions. Go to AP class, go regular classes, maybe take dual enrollment. Those are academic decisions. School designation and enrollment authority is often based upon a person's address. Where do you live? What public school district are you zoned for? Suppose in a mythical world and a hypothetical case, mom number one and dad number one live within five minutes of each other. They have a paternity case. And the court orders that mom has school designation authority and that she is the one that can decide where the minor child goes to school. Now this is based upon her current address. But then suppose mom leaves that school district. She moves 20, 30, 40, all the way up to 49 .9 miles away. Then what happens?

If your case has school designation enrollment authority for mom number one, essentially permanently, wherever she moves, she generally will make that decision. If either or both parties move from that school district and the minor child is no longer essentially zoned for that public school district, then we may have a problem. Because if dad doesn't have the authority, then he might have to transport that minor child an hour away every day during his overnight time sharing with that minor child. Or the minor child may have to go to a school that's a private school with a scholarship if the parents can obtain one, of course. That is few and far between, but it is also possible to get enrollment at a place like a charter school. These things do happen. Life happens. Career changes happen, moves happen. All of these things are just part of daily life for almost all of us. Shifting jobs, shifting housing, different careers, different life circumstances. Let's take a different example. Dad has school designation authority after a divorce with two minor children. But what happens? Dad has to move away to another state, and now it becomes a long distance time sharing plan or relocation case. Suppose that dad now leaves the children a majority of the time with mom number two. So dad two is now out of state. Mom two now has school district authority to enroll the minor children wherever she is districted for based upon her current address. Let's choose a different example. Two parents are divorced from each other. Both parents have school designation and enrollment authority. However, neither one can agree. One parent wants a Catholic or a Christian school on scholarship. The other parent thinks that the local public school is in the minor child's best interest with a better academic program, better reading proficiency, what have you. What then happens if the two parents cannot agree?

Well, what usually happens is an emergency hearing in July or August if you can get court time. But in a reasonable circumstances, what would happen? The kids finish school in May and then the parents confer in June. They cannot have a decision. So they schedule a hearing a month or two later. At that hearing, both parties, mom number three and dad number three, are likely to present to the court information about each one of those schools. In this podcast, I am not going to give you legal advice. I'm certainly not going to tell you how to seek to enter evidence into the court record...

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1. Understanding school designation and enrollment authority Florida divorce (00:00:00)

2. School designation in a Florida Divorce (00:02:57)

3. Which Parent Gets to Decide Where the Children go to School in Divorce? (00:06:06)