New to 50/50 custody, biodad wants son to change schools next year

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momma_2_four

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My son is age 10. His bio dad and I were never married and split when my son was a year old. I married when he was 2 and since have had 3 more children (2-7 year olds and a 5 year old). His bio dad married when he was 5 and divorced in January 2011 with a 2 year old.

Last summer my husband and I moved so that we are now 17 miles from my son's bio dad. It also happens to be across the county line by 2 miles. (the move was only 10 miles from where we were previously) My son's bio dad filed for custody (he had just separated from his wife) and to be allowed to enroll our son in his school district. We were ordered to conciliation for the custody and the judge ordered the status quo remain the same with me enrolling our son in the new school district with his siblings.

During conciliation, since bio dad was adamant this was not about child support (I make 75% of the income with b-dad making only 25%, yet he pays me child support since I have residential custody), I offered many options besides full custody going to b-dad. He already had Wed evening and every other weekend. Long story short, I offered 50/50 shared custody - even though his b-dad and I can barely communicate with each other. The conciliator recommended we go to co-parenting counseling, but did not write up anything specific in our parenting agreement order. I refused to sign the agreement until we had a counseling agreement court ordered. I knew his dad would refuse to go to counseling if it were not court ordered. Anyway once we got that set up, I signed the 50/50 agreement.

So far, this has worked out well for my son. He no longer has any illusions as to how it will be if he were to live with his dad. He seems to be well adjusted and is not adversely affected by the changing households. His b-dad has him M/T every week and we have him W/TH and then we rotate weekends Fri through Sun. The only problem with this is his dad refuses to let him attend his 4-H activities on his days/weekends.

His b-dad managed to get in our agreement that we would be discussing where our son would go to school for the 5th grade on in our agreement. We were to begin that discussion March 2011. I tried to bring it up in our last counseling session on March 14th. He refused to discuss it. Said he wanted to take his points directly to the conciliator to make a decision and did not want to even bring his points to the counselor for discussion as he might leave the session with his points altered.

I want to ask the court to order him to pay 100% of the conciliation since he refused to discuss with the counselor ($35/hour vs. $250/hour). Will they even consider that? I also would like this to be considered conciliation and not mediation since in conciliation the mediator can make a recommendation to the court whereas with mediation it is considered private and he can't discuss what we discussed.

Also what is the likelihood the court will order my son to change schools? He has only been in this district for one year and next year will change buildings from the elementary to the middle school. It is a small town so the kids he has in his class today will be the same ones he will have in his class in 5th grade and in 12th grade. He is getting straight A's in this school and the school's test scores are above the state average consistently. Whereas the school he would be going to has test scores all over the place. One year they are high the next low. The school my son's b-dad wants him to go to only goes to the 5th grade and then he would move to the middle school. The difference here is it is in a large city where multiple elementary schools move to a single middle school, so in essence he would have to make new friends again as there would be no guarantee the kids in any of his classes would be the ones he knew in 5th grade at the elementary. Also, I tried talking to the principal at the dad's school and when I started asking harder questions I stopped getting any responses. The principal mentioned that they may have a combined 4/5th grade next year. With 29 5th graders already in a single classroom. They meet the state requirements for student/teacher ratio by adding paras to the classrooms. Whereas the school he is in will have no more than 23 students per class. Another thing I have learned is the school district is looking at closing 3-4 elementary schools for the next school year and the school my son's b-dad is located in would be taking on some of those relocated students, making his class even bigger. And the year after that they are talking about closing even more schools and putting k-8th in single buildings which would require temp modular buildings to be used for classes at the middle schools. I'm really concerned with how much change this would be for my son.

Finally the school my son goes to now has policies in place to handle non-residential parents. They mail everything to the non-res parent, including school pictures and such. They also have a very detailed and up to date website including grades/assignments for all classes online. They also will send email/texts for events and reminders also for snow days, etc. My son's b-dad's school has nothing like this in place. They said they would work with these types of situations on a one on one basis if needed. I'm really concerned my son's grades would suffer in this type of environment. He likes to have consistency and does not like change much. While 5th grade would go to a different building, the rest stays the same. He would be riding the bus still with his siblings. But 5th grade does not have enclosed classes, they have some of their classes in different rooms with different teachers, but this is not much different than how it is today. The students are split up based on ability for math and reading now. Our district has some pretty strong inter-building communication as well and my son can get library books from the HS or MS as needed since his reading level is at the 9th grade. The larger inner-city school does not have the same set up. Our school isn't perfect, but I do feel it is much better than the inner-city school that most people try to move away from in this area.

What kind of chance do I have to keep my son in his current school district? For reference we are in Shawnee county Kansas.
 
There is no way that anyone on this site could predict what could happen in your case. If anyone provides you with such a prediction, I suggest you ask him/her for winning lottery numbers.



You have the right to ask the court to do any of the things you discussed. The court will either deny, approve, or amend your requests.






I can only add that you are doing yourself and your son a severe disservice by not hiring an attorney. An attorney may not obtain all the things you desire, but your rights will be protected and the other party will not be allowed to bully you!
 
Unfortunately, I have found the other party bullies me whether I have a lawyer or not (his lawyer is one heck of a liar as well). And given my son's bio-dad's father's (grandpa) career choice in this particular county, the lawyers I have had were more easily bullied than I am. My son's grandfather was heavily involved in the family courts in this county for years, roughly 8 years ago. He was a mediator, guardian ad litem, and actually helped to write the original Family Law Guidelines. Grandpa is now a judge with the city, but comes to every hearing we have. I haven't found a lawyer yet that is not intimidated when given this set up.
 
Thanks Army Judge.

I'd love to find a lawyer that were not intimidated, but the good ones that might actually be able to handle it all have a problem with knowing or having some kind of conflict with the grandpa or they were "retained" by the grandparents for their rights (even though they have never filed anything). I was rather hoping there was some kind of precedent with changing schools. Although, I get the feeling there is never a real precedent with any family court issue. I'll just keep gathering my evidence and buy a magic 8 ball.
 
Magic 8 balls work. Try fairy dust, too. But, the real coup is capturing a leprechaun that owns a white unicorn. That one never fails. :)
 
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