With more parents sharing custody today than ever before, when one parent moves -- even within the circumscribed 100 miles -- there may be disagreements about which school the children will attend. Sometimes the choice is easy -- a good small town school district vs. a country district that is impoverished and has no busing for transportation. Other times the choice is more difficult. Increasingly, as the Detroit News reports today, family court judges are being asked to decide which school the kids will attend, because the parents cannot agree.
The Detroit News article is interesting and shows the difference between the school system in Howell and the school system in Grosse Pointe.
Did you know that you can compare schools when preparing a case for a client by using www.schoolmatters.com? This is a service of Standard & Poor, and compares schools based upon performance of students on standardized tests, teacher-pupil ratios, and other critical factors.
See two important posts on this blog discussing Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court cases decided after this post was written:
When choice of schools impacts custody
Change of Schools | Cases are fact-specific
When choice of schools impacts custody
The most important school choice case decided in Michigan is Pierron v Pierron, decided in 2010.
Download Pierron_v_Pierron, 486 Mich 81, 85; 782 NW2d 480 (2010).
Do you need help with a divorce or custody case? Find a Michigan Family Lawyer near you.
Thanks for the School Matters site. I tried it out, but unfortunately it does not include private and parochial schools, at least in Kentucky.
Posted by: Diana L. Skaggs | August 30, 2007 at 03:13 PM