You Absolutely Do Have the Right To Know How Your Child’s Doing in School
Video Transcribed: Hello, my name is Brian L. Jackson. I am a father’s rights attorney in Oklahoma, What your rights are as a non-custodial parent when communicating with your child’s school. Do you have rights?
If so, what kind of, what is the scope of those rights? You do, even as a non-custodial parent, you do have the right to access your child’s records and the right to know what’s going on with your child educationally, unless there’s a specific court order to the contrary.
Typically, where that would come into play is with a protective order. But barring that, just because you’re non-custodial, even if you do not have joint legal custody, you absolutely do have the right to know how your child’s doing in school, to access their educational records, to contact them at school.
The school legally is barred from interfering. If they do interfere, you would have a remedy. You may have a couple of remedies because there are specific statutes that deal with schools.
Then, there’s a generic remedy that, for example, if you were entitled to pick your child up at school and they refused, you may have a cause of action against them under Title 43. But you do, just because you’re non-custodial doesn’t mean you don’t get to know what’s going on with your kid at school.
A similar, it’s similar in terms of the child’s medical history, medical records. Again, just because you’re non-custodial doesn’t mean you don’t get to know what’s going on with them medically. You do. Again, unless there’s some specific court order to the contrary, and it has to be more than just an order of giving mom custody.
It has to be something specifically prohibiting it. Typically, again, that’s in the context of some kind of a protective order. Otherwise, you do have a right to know, and mom is not permitted to deny you access, and neither is the school.
Now, if you do find yourself in a situation where you are being denied access to your child’s school records or medical records without a court order justifying it, then you need legal assistance, and you should go to Dads.law.
