Some of the most common questions a Virginia family law attorney receives involve how divorce impacts a child’s education. The reality is that the educational impact of divorce in Virginia can depend on a variety of factors, and there is no single “formula” that can predict the educational outcomes of divorce for your child with certainty. Instead, there are some broad considerations for co-parenting and school success that parents approaching a divorce may wish to keep in mind as they consider their options for addressing family court and school disputes. Economic impacts and legal custody tend to be two of the most predictable factors in how divorce impacts a child’s education, but every situation brings its own unique set of variables to bear. To discuss your Virginia child custody and education rights, consider arranging a consultation with an experienced family law attorney Virginia parents have turned to time and again. Call DiPietro Law Group at (866) 607-3461 to find a time.
Legal Custody vs. Physical Custody: Who Makes School Decisions?
Parents who have never been through a divorce with children in Virginia before may initially be inclined to think of child custody primarily in terms of how much time each parent gets to spend with the child. Considerations regarding the child’s commute to and from school, and which parent will be responsible for pickup and drop-off, tend to play a dominant role in early conversations. However, it is important to understand that part of the educational impact of divorce in Virginia may depend on how the court overseeing the divorce case awards legal vs. physical custody. Either type of custody may be awarded solely or jointly.
Legal Custody Considerations for How Divorce Affects a Child’s Education
The Code of Virginia § 20-124.1 defines legal custody as the responsibility to care for, exert control over, and make decisions regarding the child. Thus a significant factor in child custody and school decisions in Virginia may be whether legal custody is shared between the parents, as opposed to one parent holding sole legal custody of the children. Physical custody, referring to having the child in residence at the parent’s home (sometimes informally called “overnights”) will not usually affect Virginia child custody and education rights
Does the Custodial Parent Choose the School?
Some of the most common questions about child custody and school decisions in Virginia involve legal custody and education. When the parents share legal custody, generally speaking both parents will need to agree on where the child should be enrolled in school, and on such fundamental concerns as whether the child is sent to a private school vs. a local public school district. When one parent has sole legal custody, on the other hand, that parent is generally free to make decisions regarding the child’s education without consulting the other parent.
Changing Schools After Divorce: What Virginia Parents Should Know
There are many reasons for changing schools after a divorce. One reason, of course, is that children moving from elementary grades to junior high, or from “middle” to high school, will typically need to change schools within their districts as they progress through the stages of the K-12 public education system, regardless of whether the parents are divorced. In these situations, the co-parenting implications may be limited to adjusting arrangements for the child’s commute to and from the school. In cases where one parent lives much closer than the other to the new school, adjustments to the expectations for pickup and drop-off times may also make sense.
Changing schools by choice, on the other hand, can easily activate a different set of concerns. Two factors will generally be important to consider:
- How legal custody is awarded in the case: If one parent has sole legal custody, then he or she can usually select a new school for his or her child without the other parent’s approval, absent provisions in the custody order specific to school selection. When the parents share legal custody, as a general rule they will need to agree on the change of schools unless the court order establishing legal custody rights grants one parent “tie-breaker” status in educational choices.
- The provisions specified in the custody order: Because both the nature of a child’s education and, in many cases, the location where that education takes place can be “core” issues with multiple ripple effects in the child’s life, some co-parenting arrangements have detailed requirements written into the custody orders, such as limitations on how far from either parent’s home a new school (selected by choice) may be, or whether either parent may schedule a child for extracurricular activities that will happen on both parents’ custody and visitation schedules.
As crucial as Virginia child custody and education rules are, it is also essential to consider any specific provisions pertinent to your own case. A Virginia family law attorney with DiPietro Law Group may be able to review your custody order and help you evaluate your legal options for school choice after divorce in Virginia.
The Connection Between Divorce and Academic Performance
The international journal Demographic Research published a comparative analysis in 2022 whose findings suggested the troubling persistence, across many different demographic contexts and multiple geographic settings, of a negative correlation between parental divorce and a child’s long-term educational achievements. Researchers remark a particularly sharp difference between the children of divorced parents and children coming from two-parent homes in the younger generation’s attainment of university degrees; even when both parents are highly educated, the children of divorced parents are less likely to graduate from college or university than are their peers whose parents remain married. Another study, published in 2019 in the journal Sociological Science and available to the public through the National Library of Medicine, also found a disparity in university degree attainment between the children of divorced and non-divorced household, but the study authors note some interesting details: The disparity is pronounced for white children, but negligible for nonwhite children, while household income makes a sharp difference in outcomes across racial categories, with downward adjustments in household income post-divorce correlating to lower rates of university graduation for the children of divorced households.
These two studies, representing only a tiny fraction of the reams of research published on divorce and children’s school performance, serve to underscore three key points that any post-divorce parenting plan Virginia parents consider may need to address:
- Parental divorce is strongly associated with a reduction in children’s long-term “educational attainment” (a term frequently used in psychological and sociological research on how divorce affects a child’s education).
- The downward adjustment of a child’s future prospects after parental divorce is not inevitable, and may not even be tied to the divorce itself – the disruption in household schedule, the psychological implications of witnessing the breakdown of a relationship at close range.
- Careful financial planning – and parents’ assumption of shared financial responsibility – during and after a divorce may go a long way towards “correcting” for the potential negative impacts of divorce on a child’s educational future.
What all of these observations mean, when taken together and placed in context, is that how divorce impacts a child’s education may depend as much on the financial arrangements established in the parents’ divorce decree as on the emotional challenges that often accompany the shift from a shared household to having only one parent at home, and (frequently, but not necessarily) living across two distinct households.
How a Virginia Family Law Attorney Can Help Protect Your Child’s Academic Stability
Preparing for a divorce with children is necessarily a complex undertaking. For parents concerned about the relationship between divorce and children’s school performance, it may be helpful to know that how divorce impacts a child’s education is not a foregone conclusion, but rather the outcome of a set of factors that parents often have some ability to influence. Making a case for legal custody and arguing for terms specific to child custody and school decisions to be written into your custody order can shape the relationship between Virginia child custody and education rights, affecting the degree of control each parent maintains over where their child attends school through at least the child’s secondary education (high school) years. Much of the educational impact of divorce may also depend on the economic changes in one or both households, so thinking of post-divorce finances not just in terms of immediate struggle but as a factor affecting your child’s long-term educational potential may help you to set your priorities during divorce negotiations. Consider developing a plan for co-parenting and school success with the advice and support of a family law attorney Virginia residents know they can trust. Call our Fairfax office today at (866) 607-3461 to schedule a consultation with a Virginia divorce and child custody attorney at DiPietro Law Group.
