17. Education: Who Chooses The Schools In A Parenting Plan

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Sydney Mitchell:
In our previous episode Matthew, we talked through the implications of childcare and babysitters within the parenting plan. And today we’re going to jump straight into education. When two parties are deciding upon what schools to enroll their kids to, whether it be elementary, middle, or high school, just, just dive in. What, what was the process of deciding the education portion of the parenting plan?

Matthew Brickman:
So Sydney, just like with babysitters, so much of this comes down to trust. Um, and as we discussed in the previous episode, all the little nuances, um, so the first thing that we’ve got to deal with, um, and, and, you know, parents sometimes ask, why do we even have to deal with it? And the reason for it is because when a child is enrolled in a public school and we’re going to get into private and charter and choice programs, medical programs, virtual, all of that, the public school, there’s a line item on the, uh, enrollment sheet. And they do enrollment in August. I says, is there a court ordered parenting plan? If, if you check, yes, you have to attach your parenting plan.

Sydney Mitchell:
No idea. I grew up with a parenting plan in my whole life. I never knew that my school knew

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah, yes, schools now. And so number one, they want to see, okay, what’s the timesharing parental responsibility, but is this child zone to go to this school?

Sydney Mitchell:
That’s probably the first order is there. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman:
So that’s why it’s here now. It’s only applicable in public school. So we have to put for purposes of school boundary, determination registration, the either mother or father’s address shall be designated. Now, sometimes we, uh, this is simple. They’re like, yeah, he can use his address or yes, she can use her address. No issues sometimes though, surprisingly enough, the kids are actually going to a school from grandma and grandpa’s address. Not even mom and dads will send them.

Sydney Mitchell:
And that’s totally permitted to say, that’s not the mother father.

Matthew Brickman:
So it’s like, okay, well then what do we do in the parenting plan? Right. So that’s where I, it’s my job to help get create. So I’ll put for purpose of school, boundary, determination registration, the child shall continue to attend the school that the child is attending at the time of executing this agreement. Right? So it’s sort of like the deviation around,

Sydney Mitchell:
Just avoid, let’s just avoid.

Matthew Brickman:
Sometimes we can’t deal with this. Um, I had a mediation a couple of weeks ago where we could not deal with this piece of it until we went to the mediation agreement and dealt with the marital home because it all depended on who was going to keep the marital home if one of them was going to keep the marital. And so, you know, for example, like if the, if the father was going to buy the mother out of her equity, share of the home and keep the home, well, then in this section would be the father’s address. Cause they wanted the kids to stay in the same school. Right. But if mom’s going to keep the home, well, then we’d have to change this to us. So we, so we’d have to pause on this, go deal with the house and then come back and then plug this in.

Matthew Brickman:
Um, sometimes though, um, and the kids at the time of doing this, the kids are in private school, doesn’t matter still, this needs to be addressed. And so what we’ll put is I like to explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. And so, um, and so I will, I will always put together at the time of executing this agreement. It’s one of my favorite lines at the time of executing this agreement, that child is attending private school in the event that the child attends public school. Then now we do either mother’s address father’s address, or this takes us into a new piece, um, where again, the entire statute parenting plan is all about best interest of the child, right? We’ve talked about that. The core foundation of best interest of the child, setting them up for success in this world is their education. Right?

Matthew Brickman:
And you would think that this might be where the parties can come together and find common ground because it’s not anything, it’s not a reflection of them as a parent, right. It’s not like any. And so, uh, you would think this would be like, okay, fine. Mom’s address because she’s in a better school so that I am right. But ever since in Florida, in 2011, that the legislature got rid of primary and secondary parenting. Okay. Those two terms, this piece here education seems to be the final frontier power grabbing parents think that if they have school boundary, they’ve got more. I got something I got help more than the other parents. They couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s just simply not true because the rest of this paragraph let’s continue reading the paragraph. After we, after we figure our mom or dad’s address, right, the mother and the father understand that there is no primary or secondary designation. The state of Florida in neither parent has more or less power or decision making authority in selecting a or change in a child’s school.

Sydney Mitchell:
I see in that sentence, it says in the state of Florida, is, is this different than other States?

Matthew Brickman:
So when I have done, uh, uh, mediations in other States, I simply change the state of Florida to stay to Tennessee New York, um, or not. But it depends on that state’s laws. If they do have primary or secondary designation or not, um, a lot of States have been getting away from primary and secondary. They’ve gone to shared parental responsibility. Gaining some States have even gone to, there is a premise or a presumption of 50, 50 timesharing where Florida doesn’t have a premise or presumption yet. Um, and we’ll get into that when we get into timesharing. But, um, but sometimes I will then have to alter this paragraph to simply say that neither parent has more or less power decision making authority in selecting a change in a child school because still it’s based under shared parental responsibility. So continuing neither parent may unilaterally select a school or change a child’s school without the express written agreement of the other parent. And I have to do that in writing, um, whether or not

Sydney Mitchell:
Clued, you know, if a child is in elementary school, they graduate fifth grade and go to sixth grade and they have to technically now go to eight.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah, I know. I know those are the little nuances that people think, Ooh, now it’s an opportunity for me to come in and now, you know, I have no, no, no, no, no, no. Like if the school’s breaking up, cause I always put it, you put them into it like this. If they’re in a private school K through 12, they’re not changing schools. Right. And just because you have to change a school because the public school is cut into pieces does not mean that you get to do that. But I have had parents that said, okay, fine, mom can get elementary. I want middle. And she can have high school. I’ve had that. And so we put that again. It’s the nuances that you can customize and why did they do that? Well, because mom had a higher rate in school for puffer, uh, elementary and for, um, high school.

Matthew Brickman:
But somehow her zone had a really bad, they don’t school. Uh, dad’s had a better middle school. The only problem though, with that, and I’m sure that you, you would understand this being that you grew up on a parenting plan is if you’re zoned for one school, you’re going to school and all your friends are there and then you get pulled into a different school. You’re going with a whole new set of friends, right. Kids don’t really like that. And this is where parents are getting selfish and getting in the way of their children, because you’ve got to think about that. Like for me, you know, my parents moved to Fort worth, um, when I was starting fourth grade and it was just really great private school they had heard about, so they put me in that school, it turned out, it was a really bad school.

Matthew Brickman:
They pulled me out, they put me in a different school. It turned out that school wasn’t good. I was in like, I think three or four different tools in fourth grade. It was, it was the one year that’s. I mean, that’s insane. Um, and you know, and yeah, so too, you know, who, what kid at any age, especially the awkward ages of like middle school is to be pulled in and out of a school to be the brand new kid. Um, and so, and so, you know, whether whether or not a parent wants to move the school, um, whether it’s public, private charter, or virtual or any other kinds of schools, the child will attend, the parents have to mutually agree. Now let’s say that they can’t agree that they’re, you know, they are power grabbing. I don’t want his address. Well, I don’t want her address.

Sydney Mitchell:
Does that help in a lot? Do you have a lot of parties that really can’t find common ground on this? Yeah.

Matthew Brickman:
You know what Sydney, usually the babysitter and education go hand in hand, like they are, they are making decisions out of hurt out of hand. And so yeah, they can really make some really poor decisions regarding their children because they’re selfish and self-centered, and they can’t get over themselves. I was like that. I was narcissistic where I was so upset at my ex that I was making some bad decisions regarding my kids, because my, my judgment was clouded because I was upset at her. Right.

Sydney Mitchell:
So knowing that the parents have to watch out for, you know, to our listeners, you know, if you’re in the process of developing a parenting plan with your mediator or considering beginning the process of mediation, you know, I think that’s, that’s probably the biggest encouragement that we can give is, you know, to come in with a level head and, you know, remember that the decisions you’re making are in best interest or should be in best interest of the child, not motivated by your own anger, et cetera.

Matthew Brickman:
And I will tell you, and I’m going to give a shout out to her, but I will tell you, so after my divorce, um, he was probably about maybe two years, year, year and a half, two years or so after my divorce, um, I met a girl. Um, her name was Missy Brown lives over on the West coast. Um, she does permanent makeup, great permanent makeup artist. Oh my gosh, absolutely phenomenal. In any case, um, we were dating and I’ll never forget. She told me something cause you know, she was involved with some of the litigation that I had with my ex-wife. And I remember one day we were sitting on the grass talking and, and miss it. Missy had a daughter. Um, her name was Taylor. Um, now married has a kid. Um, and, um, Missy’s never been married, uh, but you know, had a parenting plan, went through the whole thing with her ex and Taylor’s dad and stuff. But Missy told me something that has, that I tell people all the time in mediation and, and has always been the forefront ever since she told her, but she looked at me non-state and her at the time, and we were even engaged at one point. And she said to me, Sydney, she said, Matthew, you were never going to be the dad or the parent that your kids need you to be until you can get out of your own way.

Matthew Brickman:
And I was in my own way because I was so upset at my ex that I couldn’t actually be the parent that my kids needed because I couldn’t get out of my own way. And, and so going to this, like w you know, babysitters or education, like why wait till we get into the timesharing? So much of it, it’s not the best interest of the child. The parents can’t get out of their own way because they’re hurt. And it’s legitimate hurts. Look, I mean, a divorce, a divorce at a bankruptcy, um, are probably two of the worst things that somebody could go through in a foreclosure, probably the three things, a bankruptcy or foreclosure. Um, and especially for an adamant, because a foreclosure says that, you know what, I don’t have what it takes to put a roof over my family’s had a bankruptcy, says I don’t have what it takes to actually financially be responsible on this planet.

Matthew Brickman:
And a divorce says I don’t have what it takes to actually have relationship. Well, then what else do you have? Like if you can’t deal with the basics of provision and relationship, really what I mean? Like, so, you know, they even say that death is easier to deal with than a divorce because there’s finale this lingers, it just goes on and on. And now you’ve got a document where you’re forced to co-parent with a person that a lot of times you don’t mind, but so what I try to do and understanding this, going through this realizes is I try to do, um, be as preventative maintenance and empowering as possible. So with parents that are feeling this tug of war of school boundary, we have tools to help them overcome that. So if mom and dad are saying, Hey, you know what, I want school boundary, no, I want school boundary.

Matthew Brickman:
What they’re able to do is we have, um, a metrics called school digger.com. And I encourage everybody to go look at it, school Digger, just like a dog dig in D I G G E R school digger.com. You can pick your state, you can put in your address, you can put in the other party’s address and it will pull up your school’s zone. And it will tell you what your elementary, middle, and high schools rank. And what’s really great about this, uh, system that’s out there is it ranks a numerically. You cannot get the same school ranking. It’s not like a grade where like, Ooh, you know, an, a rated a B rated, or what have you have to weigh rate of the schools. Um, and, um, and so this at least gives a ranking. And so, um, what the rankings look at, if you actually go to the rankings, what they do is they actually break, um, the school down, um, into different, um, different metrics and whatnot for like math and science and, uh,

Sydney Mitchell:
Just a blanket, you know, a, B, C, E grade based on standardized testing and yeah. Yeah. I mean,

Matthew Brickman:
It, I mean, it, it tells you how many students it’s got the student teacher ratio. It gives her a racial breakdown. Um, it gives the, um, the statewide performance, the enrollment, the, and this is interesting, the percentage of free or reduced lunches, um, average test scores. Um, it gives, uh, it tells like, okay, you know, what is the percentage of full-time teachers? Um, like I said, the, the student teacher ratio, um, then test scores, you can look at test scores, um, for, uh, language and biology, history, algebra, geometry,

Sydney Mitchell:
So much data here. I didn’t know. Anybody could just look at this at any time,

Matthew Brickman:
A lot of data, and this tool helps people avoid litigation. So let me tell you a story. I have a really, really, really good friend. And at the time, um, when I did her divorce, um, they had her and her husband had two or three-year-old. So this wasn’t applicable. So they just said, you know, and so they weren’t thinking forward. They didn’t want to use any metrics or anything. They just had left the parent with the highest rated school. Okay, great. Well, a couple years go by and now the little kid is ready to go to school. Well, mom says, well, my school’s higher rated. She’s looking at Florida department of education ranking. Then he’s looking at the Palm beach County ranking, and they’re arguing over it. It sent them into litigation, $14,000 later. The judge makes a ruling. The child is now going to dad’s school. And, you know, I mean, but they got divorced. And then later they ended up spending 14,000

Sydney Mitchell:
Just to figure out what school they’re going to go to.

Matthew Brickman:
It is worth it to figure it out in your mediation or prior, have these conversations, do your research prior to mediation. So you’re not spending money later,

Sydney Mitchell:
Get it done, get

Matthew Brickman:
It done. It. Look, we’ve got tools out there, school diggers, a phenomenal tool. So, and look, the whole tools ranking and everything still is not perfect. It’s not everything. And I’ll give you an example. Um, I had a mediation where the parties agreement said the highest rated school. Didn’t say what metrics just said, highest rated. Well, mom is living in a school that is an a rated school. Dad is living in a district that is a B rated school. They come to mediation, they end up talking and negotiating. And the child goes to dad who has a, B rated instead of an, a rated, even though the agreement that they originally signed said best rated, okay. Why, how did that happen? Well, here’s what happened. Everything is based on best interest of the child, right? And dad’s B rated school is the autistic drop-off center or autism school for all of Palm beach County.

Matthew Brickman:
And they have an autistic child. So best interests of the child is to go to the school that specializes with kids of autism, regardless of the ranking, right? That’s why parents really need to get over themselves. So they can’t just like me, so they can be the parent that their kid needs. And that’s why it’s important to have these discussions, do these research and whatnot. And then, like I said, I child may get into a magnet program or a, uh, uh, a charter school, or they may get into a choice for them to get into the lottery and they get into a choice program. So now they can go out of district to a school that they’re not zoned for. Still. The parents have to agree on that. That’s shared parental. No, no, no one parent has more or less decision-making, um, when they’re shared parental responsibility, uh, and then their agreement. So the next, uh, the next piece of education is schoolwork and attendance. Now you would think of Sydney, this is common sense. Like, we don’t need to put, like, you’re going to do schoolwork with your kid when you got them. Right.

Sydney Mitchell:
Well, at this point, I mean, we’re putting everything, just throw it in. Everything’s going into this case. It’s gotta be talked about.

Matthew Brickman:
Well, and, and you know what? My, my parenting plan, I’m actually the chief judge of Palm beach County, a number of years ago before she was chief judge actually said, this is the most comprehensive, preventative maintenance, detailed parenting plan she had ever seen. And it’s because I am looking to keep the parties out of litigation. And it is so clearly written. So simplistically written, non-legal jargon that if somebody violates us going back to, well, what happens if somebody violates, right? If somebody violates it, there’s no go into court and a judge going, well, I can see where they misunderstood this. Or

Sydney Mitchell:
No,

Matthew Brickman:
No, no, no. Like it’s so detailed and comprehensive that it’s like, what do you mean? You didn’t know, you had to do homework. It says the minor child may have online assignments, reading assignments, projects that align during the school year, summer, and holiday break. The parent who was exercising time sharing with the child will insure that all the child’s homework is completed and turned in on time. When do, what do you mean? You didn’t know that, sir, like, right. Like, it’s so clear now what was happening for years, which is why it’s in here is one parent would be doing a project and co, and so, so like mom would get the child back or dad would get the child back on the weekend and now their entire weekend to shop because they’re having to do a project and do this. And the kids go and the dad, I want to play.

Matthew Brickman:
It’s like, sorry, your mom didn’t do or whatever. Like, do do the work, do the work and learn if this will come into play later when we talk about timeshare, because a lot of people like, I want to be the school parents, right. I’m better at math or I, or, or I want to, I want to have them at the end of the week to help them prepare for tasks. I don’t care about the beginning, or I want them at the beginning of the week because I want to get the agenda. And I want to see I’m better at planning these things. So this plays in a lot with, with the timeshare that we’re going to get into in future.

Sydney Mitchell:
I had no idea. Yeah. I just, like I said, you know, I think either earlier in the previous episode, as we’re reading through all of this, I had no idea that all of this was talked about in this parenting plan. I think about my upbringing. I just, you know, like I said, I switched back and forth every couple of days, pretty much my entire life from three to 18 until I started college and moved in actually with one of my parents full-time. Um, but I just remember, you know, in regards to homework and projects and things like that, you know, I had one of my parents that I just tended to go to more, you know, with help on projects and things like that. Um, but it never seemed to interfere with our, you know, like you said, Oh, well, our whole weekend is shot because the project didn’t happen.

Sydney Mitchell:
And things like that. Sometimes the child just is either closed, you know, has a closer relationship with one of the parents, um, or, you know, whatever the case and just kind of goes to one for help with schoolwork and things like that. So I just kinda thought that was an inorganic thing. I had no idea that this was, you know, a mandate, um, you know, and again, you know, parents are flexible and the more trust that that they have with each other, it just kind of works out. And the family that doesn’t have too much animosity like mine, but, um, but I’m sure that it gets messy sometimes. You know, when parents aren’t fulfilling their end of the responsibility, when you know, there is animosity and it does start to interfere with their time sharing.

Matthew Brickman:
Well, and think of it like this at too, when you have an out of state plan. Okay. So let’s say for example, parents live in separate States. So the kids go to one parent for the majority of the summer. And the school has, you know, a summer reading program where they’ve got to do some reading and a book reports and stuff. Well that parent who may not have them during the school year, but there’s homework over the summer. They’ve, they’ve got to make sure that that’s getting done, right. I mean, so these are the things where, whereas, you know, as a mediator, I’m sitting here going best interests of the child, best interest of the child, best interest of the child, like that child that we’re talking their education. This will form the, this, this will form the rest of their entire life. So it’s so, so moving on from home, we’re going to explain these to the minors.

Matthew Brickman:
Your child should not be tardy more than two times in a given semester, the child should not be absent from school, absent a doctor’s note or any other type of note, which the school will accept for an excused absence, unless the parties otherwise agree. So let me break apart these two sentences first off, um, I know a lot of parents that just can’t seem to wake up in the morning and get all the kids out, get, get organized, and the kids are coming. We targeted, um, certain schools. If there there’s too many tardies, the children get punished. The children don’t get to go on the field trip or they don’t get to participate in the activity because they were tardy. Well that’s because a parent is constantly tardy. I had one, I had a mediation Sydney recently where Dan lived 20 miles away from the school.

Matthew Brickman:
Mom lived around the corner. Mom wanted school boundary because the kid could walk to school in an entire semester. The child was tardy 14 times. It dad’s like you live basically down the street and around the corner at school, like, what do you mean you can’t get this kid to school on time? I live 20 miles away. That’s like 35 minutes in traffic and I’ve never had a party. Um, and so this gives rise to potentially changing the time sharing plan, right? Hurricane get a child to school on time. Maybe we need to change the timesharing plan. Then the child’s not to be absent from school. I’ve had it where parents, you know, parent will wake up. Actually my ex did that. She’d wake up and be like, Oh, I have a headache or migraine. I can’t take it to school. You want a day off and just stay home.

Matthew Brickman:
And the kid doesn’t go to school all week. Well, because you have a headache that needs to go to school. And so this also, I’ve also had this way, or for example, let’s say, for example, parents are out of state or even long distance where they may, you want that. Then they may want to pull the child out of school to start the vacation a day early, or they may want to extend that vacation. They’re like, Oh, look, it’s the day after Christmas and new year’s nothing’s really going to happen the first day after, you know, they don’t need school. Well, no, they’re not going to be absent, absent a doctor’s note or any other type of note that the school’s going except for an excused absence, unless they otherwise agree in writing. You know, these are those nuances again that are important. Um, school calendar, let’s move on to school calendar if necessary on may.

Matthew Brickman:
First of each year, the parish should obtain a copy of the school calendar for the next school year, discuss the calendar and time sharing differences. So any questions that arise, give your resolve to have this all about preventative, preventative maintenance. And so then we put, the parents will follow the school calendar for the County where the child is attending school. Sometimes we’ll put, um, simply the school calendar for the school, which the child is attending because you know, maybe it’s a charter school and they don’t follow Palm beach County. And so, um, and so, you know, we do that. Um, and then, then the last section of education is we simply define the academic break. Like when does it actually start? And when does it in, according to school calendar and parents used to always argue about this, um, two Christmases, two winter breaks ago, I had three or four phone calls from parents going, you know, I’m getting cheated out of a day because they were trying to figure out when does winter break actually start? Some said, Oh, it starts, you know, if the kids get out of school on Friday, they’re like, it starts Friday night. That was like, no, no, no, it starts Saturday night. Well, that can have a huge implication of, of where does that break, you know, start and stop. And so we actually clearly define the academic break. And so that’s the education section

Sydney Mitchell:
I have, I have one looming question. So how, how has this, and then we’ll wrap up, how is this entire section of the parenting plan handled if parents, you know, live extremely far away or in different States? How do you even like, you know, obviously a lot of the, the expectations and responsibilities change, you know, because the child probably lives, you know, maybe full time with one parent and of course attends a school in their area. How do they agree upon the school? What does that process look like? Choosing schools and you know, just, just all of this when, when parents live.

Matthew Brickman:
Okay. So probably, so I’ll tell you real-world experience. My ex-wife lived in New York. I lived in Florida. I had the kids living with me. This was back when we had primary, secondary parenting. So for school boundary determination, it was, my address was selected and the kids went to the public school that my address was unforced. So it wasn’t an issue. Right?

Sydney Mitchell:
So you guys didn’t have to mutually agree upon a school in the district.

Matthew Brickman:
No, because you only have to mutually agree if one parent’s address is not designated or if they’re going to be a public private charter, virtual magnet choice. My kids just went to the public school. So it was my Zen. If, if I have the kids during the school year, she can’t have school boundaries, like logically, like just, it was by default. It was my address. So done my address, right. Schoolwork and attendance. So schoolwork and attendance, um, that was very important for us because like I said, the kids had that stuff over the summer when they were with her. Um, and the school calendar. Well, that was simple. It was the, we, we had the school, which the kids are going to attend an academic break. Academic break is based on the calendar and it’s the academic break. So sometimes Sydney, when they’re out of state or in state long distance, this is really easy. They do, you don’t have the power grabbing that sometimes occurs because it’s like, uh, it is what it is. Like you live in cork. I live in Florida. You can’t have school boundary not possible. Right. So, you know, with the distance, sometimes it gets easier. Yeah.

Sydney Mitchell:
Yeah. It sounds like it does. All right. Well, we’re going to wrap up for today, but next episode, we’re going to be talking through the weekday and weekend schedule, which is really what eats up. Most of the child’s, you know, this is what, what, you know, not affects the child the most, but this is the day to day, week to week, um, you know, schedule that the child is following, as they’re hanging out with friends and going to school, you know, this really determines what their lifestyle looks like and maybe some levels of consistency.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. And this, this is where we spend most of the time on a parenting plan, because this is the most important, you know, when is the child going to spend time with mom and dad? So,

Sydney Mitchell:
All right. All right, let’s do that next episode. Thank you, Matthew, for all of your insights and looking forward to that next episode,

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.