new to board - question about divorce & homeschool

[sparklemum]

hi there

i spend a lot of time on the diapering board, but am considering homeschooling so i thought i'd check into the collective wisom

my problem is this: i have a 9 year old and i have done tons of research (since she was born, really) about homeschooling and am confident it would work well for her...particularly at this juncture in her life...

but i am divorced from her father and he has her 10 days out of every 4 weeks and those days are mon-fri...he is completely against homeschooling...

any thoughts? i've tried mediation and such - and am afraid to take it to the courts as i am not sure they would look so positively on homeschooling..

i'm wondering, could i just take her out of school and say this is the way it is?

any comparable experiences would be welcomed

thanks!

tracy

[tricia80]

I can't really offer any words of wisdom on ur particular situation.. but i wanted to say hi and welcome you here...

[mattemma04]

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[dirtlovinmama]

I am in a similiar boat, although my dd is only 3 yrs. old....

I think educating your ex about how homeschooling would look for your family may be the right tactic...including dd in decisions so that she is real fired up about what she is doing, so that dad sees that this is the way...might be easier said then done.

goodluck

[sparklemum]

thanks for the welcome

i am the residential/custodial parent, but we are suppose to make joint decisions when it comes to religion, school and medical...kinda silly, if we were able to agree on those topics we probably wouldn't be divorced

its a pretty dreary situation - he's just a real pain the arse and if he knows that homeschooling is "too" important to me he will never agree...ugh...

my 9 year old is just doing miserably in school - she is brilliant and has reached the age where she is just bored...who could blame her? all they are doing is studying for a major assessment test (the WASL for those in WA state) and she is learning nada...on top of that, they are teaching her such illogical thought processes that its going to be a struggle just to get her head straight...

we're going to try summer homeschool (course, not in the traditional sense...) and see where we are the end of the summer...

[anythingelse]

When your ex has her during the ten day period, does she attend school during the day while he is at work?

Could be that he can not afford daycare for her while she is in his care, not a homeschooling issue. Also if she is at ps, he can contact her teacher and find out what she is doing easily, he can attend school events she is involved in etc.. and by homeschooling, he will be cut out of that and be forced to have more contact with you to neg how to hs, what materials he will use, how will you two work out record keeping, what will you do if he chooses to school her in a manner you do not agree with, may be he is worried about being held resposible if you do not keep good records and have a prob with CPS come up etc...

I think I would work first to mediate the custody agreement so that you are the custodial parent 9-5 mon-fri day, get all that on paper, then you can school her as you wish.
From what I understand legally it is a matter of who has primary custody to have the weight on deciding how to school, if you two have a joint custody agreement then there are a lot of roadblocks to work through. I wish you the best as you sort this out, I personally have extended family members that dislike homeschooling and still dislike it even though my family has been 'successfully homeschooling for years now. No matter how many statistics or books, or visible evidence of happy healthy child they are against homeschooling bottom line. It would be beating a dead horse to continue to argue with them about it.

Before withdrawing her from ps, get some really really good legal advice, not from the internet~ from a real live laywer in person.

[sparklemum]

very good points...

yes, he has her in school and even though I have offered to have him bring her to my house "just like school"...no dice...

by the way - he's very liberal/crunchy himself - he's a vegan, and considered hs the way to go when we were married...funny, how things change, eh?

we don't have joint custody - i am the primary parent and the custodial parent - but he's very "active"...mostly active at harrassing me

we have also considered (my current hubby and i) moving to a city about 15 miles away - far enough to have the residential agreement changed and to slip hs into the routine...

[Amy in NH]

In general, if a there is a disagreement between joint-legal parents, the court will go with the status quo - so if your ex wants PS and you want HS the court will go with ps cuz that's the societal "norm". This has actually happened to a friend of mine who had HS'd her ds - the ex took her to court and made her send him to PS - very sad! HSing was benefitting the child and had No impact on the ex - the court sided with him anyway due to status quo.

So in your case I would guess the issue would be physical versus legal custody. For example, I have sole Physical custody, but we have joint Legal custody. For that reason he has input into the decisions about how to school (public/private/HS). My ex agrees with HS (at the moment - although he is constantly battling me). Our current visitation schedule is set up with teaching "blocks" - I get 6 weeks of school, then he gets 1 week of fun with them, he also gets the 3rd weekend of each block. Our schedule works beautifully - this is our first year doing it this way and he hates it and wants to change it (cuz he's a selfish idiot).

If you are going to court over this I would have the school-method and visitation-schedule changed all at the same time.
HTH and good luck!

[SamuraiEarthMama]

previous poster is right about status quo. fortunately, that has worked in my favor... my kids were HSed primarily all their lives, when ex moved out he tried to force me to put them in PS. but court-appointed evaluator determined that they were doing fine as homeschoolers, didn't want to go to PS, and that forcing them to PS would not be good for them.

how about establishing a great HS status quo over the summer? document what you do, hook up with your local HSers, get involved in activities (tho' summertime is when most HS groups tend to wind down... but there's likely something going on all the time!), and see if it fits for you.

good luck!

katje