What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Arkansas
Arrangement: Joint custody, Mom is custodial parent, no child support, "reasonable" visitation. 2 minor children, 1 adult child.
Facts: Before father remarried, the arrangement was visitation every other week. When Mom split from husband #2 and found a job working weekends, visitation was changed to Thurs (after school)-Sun morning to avoid having to hire a sitter. This continued even after Mom remarried right after the divorce was final until the summer when it was back to every other week for the most part. Now it is back to weekends, kids are missing a considerable amount of school (non unusual - avg 20-30+ days/yr) and adoloscent son is getting into trouble at school and last incident almost caused charges to be filed against him in violation to the bully code. Son has a history of violent behaviour and Mom made it difficult to have effective counseling sessions until this last incident.
Situation: Mom may be taking a position where she travels to different areas and her assignment would include a month away and she has asked (called at 630 am the morning of her interview for an immediate answer) if we would be willing to take the children for a month while she is away. Her husband will be going with her.
Question: With Mom being gone that long, maybe more, is it recommended that we have some legal document to provide to the school stating that we (Dad and stepmom) have temporary(?) custody with the apx. dates so that the school will send information (reports, etc) to us and change is to primary contact for the duration? Mom also indicated that there was a possibility that she might accept a perm. position which would require her to travel often and therefore she would homeschool the children and take them with her. If this became more of a possibility, would it be considered as though the Mom was moving away and taking the kids with her and would have to file a motion with the courts to do this, depending on Ark. laws? And dad does not agree with home schooling because the children already lack social skills and the youngest has shown much improvement over the last 2 yrs. Is education dispute also a grounds in which to modify the custody agreement?
Arrangement: Joint custody, Mom is custodial parent, no child support, "reasonable" visitation. 2 minor children, 1 adult child.
Facts: Before father remarried, the arrangement was visitation every other week. When Mom split from husband #2 and found a job working weekends, visitation was changed to Thurs (after school)-Sun morning to avoid having to hire a sitter. This continued even after Mom remarried right after the divorce was final until the summer when it was back to every other week for the most part. Now it is back to weekends, kids are missing a considerable amount of school (non unusual - avg 20-30+ days/yr) and adoloscent son is getting into trouble at school and last incident almost caused charges to be filed against him in violation to the bully code. Son has a history of violent behaviour and Mom made it difficult to have effective counseling sessions until this last incident.
Situation: Mom may be taking a position where she travels to different areas and her assignment would include a month away and she has asked (called at 630 am the morning of her interview for an immediate answer) if we would be willing to take the children for a month while she is away. Her husband will be going with her.
Question: With Mom being gone that long, maybe more, is it recommended that we have some legal document to provide to the school stating that we (Dad and stepmom) have temporary(?) custody with the apx. dates so that the school will send information (reports, etc) to us and change is to primary contact for the duration? Mom also indicated that there was a possibility that she might accept a perm. position which would require her to travel often and therefore she would homeschool the children and take them with her. If this became more of a possibility, would it be considered as though the Mom was moving away and taking the kids with her and would have to file a motion with the courts to do this, depending on Ark. laws? And dad does not agree with home schooling because the children already lack social skills and the youngest has shown much improvement over the last 2 yrs. Is education dispute also a grounds in which to modify the custody agreement?